Well, I gave Vista a fair crack of the whip!

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Originally Posted by si_the_geek

You have done a few times, for example in post #45 you said:
"Let's just clarify, I don't want to fault anyone. Microsoft have created a problem for my corporation, "

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Yes. And I stand by that. It is a fact that everything was going smoothly, and then Microsoft changed O/S to Vista and everything went to hell in a handbag. So, Microsoft did create a problem for my corporation. Do I blame them for it, not massively, they're just trying to make a buck much like anyone else.

It's a bit like: I don't blame my granny for throwing out my $50,000 first edition of spanko-matic weekly, because she thought it was trash. I might not like it, and it might cause me problems, but I don't blame her for it.... she was just tidying the house.

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Originally Posted by si_the_geek

The majority of what I have heard is the opposite.. including a company which extensively uses AutoCAD.

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Ah - you're right, I'm making all of this up, just to make my job harder..... how silly of me... thanks for putting me on the straight and narrow.... ;)

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Originally Posted by si_the_geek

You should be getting the crashes sorted out, as that is not normal (it is way too late for there to be any kind of teething problems). Assuming that it is driver or hardware related, and the OS was pre-installed, get the PC supplier involved; If they can't solve it, get a refund and go elsewhere.

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Good in theory, but we have crash issues with some 6 different machines (4 HP, 1 Dell and 1 Custom), so it seems to be fairly wide spread. How long do I spend trying to sort these crashes out before I decide that this is just costing my company more time and money.... when I can change to something far more stable. I have given Vista a fair crack of the whip, and I really really wanted it to work, but presently I, and my users are at the stage where we've decided that this just isn't worth the effort and is consuming more and more of our daily time, for no extra benefit. The computer is just a tool to aid us in our job. If it doesn't do that, then we have to change it to one that works, just the same as we would change truck supplier if we had one brand that constantly stalled or broke down.

The only thing that bothers me at all about what you are saying is that you make it sound like Microsoft intentially changed things to break compatibility, and force people to pay more money for something...

What does Microsoft make if your printer no longer works, or your cad program no longer works when you upgrade to vista? What is going in their pockets for that happening? Nothing at all. So why do you say something like "they are just trying to make a buck".

I read an article about MS dropping 16 bit support from x64 versions of XP, Vista and servers 03 and 08. They said something along the lines of "yes we could have jumped through some major hoops, and made 2 sets of emulation runtime to have WOW (windows on windows) for the 32 bit environment, and also for the 16 bit environment, but we had to draw the line somewhere and stop supporting 16 bit applications at some point, after all things have been 32 bit for over 10 years now, and there are plenty of virtualization methods if legacy operating systems still need to be used for legacy software."

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Originally Posted by kleinma

The only thing that bothers me at all about what you are saying is that you make it sound like Microsoft intentially changed things to break compatibility, and force people to pay more money for something...

What does Microsoft make if your printer no longer works, or your cad program no longer works when you upgrade to vista? What is going in their pockets for that happening? Nothing at all. So why do you say something like "they are just trying to make a buck".

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Sorry, that wasn't my intention, I meant that they appear to me to be saving money by not putting the extra effort into making this release fully backwards compatible with XP. I have no problem with them dropping compatibility with much older software, there must come a point in time when it becomes unrealistic to support the limited number of users out there, but software like AutoCAD 2005 has a very large user base.

I can't see that they would have any motivation to deliberately annoy their user base, it strikes me more as apathy.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

I read an article about MS dropping 16 bit support from x64 versions of XP, Vista and servers 03 and 08. They said something along the lines of "yes we could have jumped through some major hoops, and made 2 sets of emulation runtime to have WOW (windows on windows) for the 32 bit environment, and also for the 16 bit environment, but we had to draw the line somewhere and stop supporting 16 bit applications at some point, after all things have been 32 bit for over 10 years now, and there are plenty of virtualization methods if legacy operating systems still need to be used for legacy software."

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WHAT?? So you mean I can't run Total Comander 16 anmyore?? OMG I've been using it for ages! It competlely ownz explorer.exe in every way. OMG M$ are suck jerks tehy force us to use thier sutff omg all dey care about is the $$.

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

Sorry, that wasn't my intention, I meant that they appear to me to be saving money by not putting the extra effort into making this release fully backwards compatible with XP. I have no problem with them dropping compatibility with much older software, there must come a point in time when it becomes unrealistic to support the limited number of users out there, but software like AutoCAD 2005 has a very large user base.

I can't see that they would have any motivation to deliberately annoy their user base, it strikes me more as apathy.

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Most of the issues stem from this:

Microsoft says: Application Developers, you should do X and Y when developing your applications, because this is how things work now, and how things will work in the future.

Developers say: yeah but its just easier if I do Z instead, because that seems to work right now, and I will worry about X and Y when that next OS comes out.

Microsoft says: Yes but Z is not really ideal, because it requires any user to be an admininstrator on the system, and also, we may change that in the future where it won't work at all

Developers say: yeah well thats when we put out the next version and charge people for it.


I hate to keep using it as my example, but its probably the most common one to run into these days in Vista with the default limited user account tokens. You can not write to a directory in program files in Vista without being an admin and elevating your rights to do so. This causes many problems because so many apps do just this, so many in fact, that MS developed file and registry virtualization for Vista to get around it and keep apps working in Vista that worked in other operating systems.

However, MS has stated file/reg virtualization does not mean ignore the guidelines they set forth, because it the virualization may go away at some point. They say files that need to be written, should be written to specific places that a standard user DOES have access to, like their user profile.

This has been the case since day 1 with Windows XP, it just so happens that everyone runs as admin on XP, so they don't feel the pain. However ask anyone running on XP that is locked down as just a user, and EVEN LESS stuff runs on XP than it does on Vista, because there is no virtualization to handle this incorrect style of coding.

Yep, I'm aware of a few programs that won't work for me on XP as a limited user.. like ones that demand write access to the Local Machine section of the registry, when they only ever read it.

..and ones that write data to Program Files, in spite of Windows 2000 guidelines (see 4.2).

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

I can't see that they would have any motivation to deliberately annoy their user base, it strikes me more as apathy.

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True, but they didn't. They went out of their way over a period of several years to tell people (developers etc) about the issues to expect, and how to deal with them - like I said earlier, I was aware years before it had any relevance to me.

If I knew Vista was going to be used for my software within a year or two, I would have written software to be compatible with it - rather than intentionally ignoring it, and then saying "yeah I couldn't be bothered.. pay me to re-write it!".

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

It's a bit like: ..

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It's not like that at all - nobody is throwing anything away.

It would be much more apt to describe it as a company selling you a TV that isn't compatible with the new digital standards, even though they have all of the information they need to do it - just so that in a couple of years time (when digital is the only signal) they can sell you a new TV.

How is that the fault of the broadcaster?


I know this analogy doesn't cover the crashes, but it is much closer to the situation than yours was.

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Ah - you're right, I'm making all of this up, ...

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I never said or implied anything like that - I was just pointing out that Vista works fine for many organisations, in spite of your claim that "Vista is not ready for the corporate world yet.".

Just because you are having big problems with it, it doesn't mean that is the norm (and to be clear, nor that you are at fault).

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Good in theory, but we have crash issues with some 6 different machines (4 HP, 1 Dell and 1 Custom), so it seems to be fairly wide spread. ..

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I was under the impression they were all from the same supplier, but it doesn't change the fact this is not the norm.

You are right that you shouldn't be spending huge amounts of time & money fixing it.. but based on the amount of successful implementations, there must be a reason that there are problems for you, and possibly a fairly simple solution.

If you can't find out & fix yourself, think about getting a local consultant in for a day or two (the cost of which could be far less than you expect).

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Ah - you're right, I'm making all of this up, ... ;)

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I never said or implied anything like that - I was just pointing out that Vista works fine for many organisations, in spite of your claim that "Vista is not ready for the corporate world yet.".

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I think that was joke.

;)

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Originally Posted by kleinma

I just don't see the point in blaming Microsoft for an incompatibility that some OTHER software vendor has.

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Strange when upgrades to the various *nix flavours (unix + linux) never seem to lead to the mass failure of third party software and the requirement of patches to be released .... we're actually canned out Vista from our internal network (medium size shop) due to it being a shambles in terms of working with third party software.

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True, but they didn't. They went out of their way over a period of several years to tell people (developers etc) about the issues to expect, and how to deal with them - like I said earlier, I was aware years before it had any relevance to me.

If I knew Vista was going to be used for my software within a year or two, I would have written software to be compatible with it

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(BS!!!!!!) This is the crux of the matter:

We (USERS, developers, etc....... But primarily USERS!!!! [Get that, Micro$oft????????] want our "old" programs to run on Vista the same as they have since we bought them.

Micro$oft should not push some NEW requirements on EVERY USER at will (every 3 years, or so?).

It doesn't matter if there is a "better way." FINE!!!!!! But don't cut the nuts off of every business/individual that bought into the "old way" TO THE BEST OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE AT THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Set me As newtype

(BS!!!!!!) This is the crux of the matter:

We (USERS, developers, etc....... But primarily USERS!!!! [Get that, Micro$oft????????] want our "old" programs to run on Vista the same as they have since we bought them.

Micro$oft should not push some NEW requirements on EVERY USER at will (every 3 years, or so?).

It doesn't matter if there is a "better way." FINE!!!!!! But don't cut the nuts off of every business/individual that bought into the "old way" TO THE BEST OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE AT THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Jeez, it's not Microsoft, it's the programmers.

It's the same story for Mac OS X and Linux distributions. When I first started using Ubuntu, I found out of a program called Automatix. Eventually, they stopped development and now there isn't Automatix for the newest Ubuntu (which I happen to use). This isn't Ubuntu's fault, nor either is it my fault. The developers all had jobs and were tired of trying to fit the project around their hectic lives, so they called it off.

If I do enough research, there's the same deal for Mac OS X. Sometimes these "new requirements" need to be implemented because they will give a better running of the OS.

Also, these manufacturers don't try "cut the nuts off of every business/individual", technology is a rapidly changing area. If you can't cut it with it's fast pace, then you are left as the sore loser.

The majority of the requirements have been available/pushed to developers since VB6 was released (which came with the "Windows 2000 Developers readiness kit") back in 1998. The other requirements have been known for less time, but still a few years - plenty of time for developers to take notice of them.

I still don't understand why you claim it is Microsofts fault that other companies chose to ignore those requirements for so long.

To be perfectly honest, only extremely mathematically intensive programs like 3D Modelers need to be written in C++ or other unmanaged languages. Pretty much everything else works very decently on the .Net framework which has been out for many years. I wrote a program on an old XP machine when .Net 1.1 came out, and i've had it ever since. I'm currently running Vista Business 32-bit and the program runs without a hitch. By making sure that my program was completely framework standard, it's been immune to changes elsewhere in the OS.

interesting stats about Vista.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/micr...xp-vista-and-7

The problem is not with developers or microsoft. It is with the stupid managers trying to use 15 year old software and refusing to dish out some money for upgrades.

The problem is capitalism which allows for uninformed or easily swayed individuals to voice their opinions on entities they regard as 'competition'. Cue the *nix brigade.

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Originally Posted by kregg

Jeez, it's not Microsoft, it's the programmers.

It's the same story for Mac OS X and Linux distributions. When I first started using Ubuntu, I found out of a program called Automatix. Eventually, they stopped development and now there isn't Automatix for the newest Ubuntu (which I happen to use). This isn't Ubuntu's fault, nor either is it my fault. The developers all had jobs and were tired of trying to fit the project around their hectic lives, so they called it off.

If I do enough research, there's the same deal for Mac OS X. Sometimes these "new requirements" need to be implemented because they will give a better running of the OS.

Also, these manufacturers don't try "cut the nuts off of every business/individual", technology is a rapidly changing area. If you can't cut it with it's fast pace, then you are left as the sore loser.

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Good point kregg, one of the packages I use doesn't work with the latest version of MySQL. Pointed out the fixes to the company who wrote the software, still waiting on an "official" upgrade.

The crucial difference here is that with linux you can still carry on using older versions of the O/S for as long as you want until the newer versions are stabilised or packages fixed. i.e. We can keep the whole corporation on the same O/S for as long as we want, and we can decide when we want to perform the upgrade (after software has been tested).

Why can't you do that with Windows? Just disable automatic updates across the entire network.

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

The crucial difference here is that with linux you can still carry on using older versions of the O/S for as long as you want until the newer versions are stabilised or packages fixed. i.e. We can keep the whole corporation on the same O/S for as long as we want, and we can decide when we want to perform the upgrade (after software has been tested).

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So is Microsoft. Just don't buy the darn product if it does not support programs, apps, driver, whatever that is used in your company.

We had this occasion during the first release of XP.

We did not migrated to XP until SP2 was released because by that time our spanking new hardware can support XP drivers and can no longer support Win98SE.

Although there are other working computers that still run Windows 98SE up to this date because their old software/hardware cannot support Windows XP.

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Originally Posted by AceRimmer

Good point kregg, one of the packages I use doesn't work with the latest version of MySQL. Pointed out the fixes to the company who wrote the software, still waiting on an "official" upgrade.

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Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Use Windows Server 2008. It has Virtual Server features so that you can simulate a testing lab on a single computer. You can install different OS's there for your testing pleasure.

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

The crucial difference here is that with linux you can still carry on using older versions of the O/S for as long as you want until the newer versions are stabilised or packages fixed. i.e. We can keep the whole corporation on the same O/S for as long as we want, and we can decide when we want to perform the upgrade (after software has been tested).

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Originally Posted by penagate

Why can't you do that with Windows? Just disable automatic updates across the entire network.

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I was just about to say the same thing. When I was aged 11-16, the school that I was in was running Windows 95/98 machines with a Windows NT server (I believe). I was there for 4 years, and they still had the same old setup. Then when I had left, they demolished the building to make a new school building (the same school, but just a redesigned building). I remember the Computer guy (that's what we called him) saying to us that if the school wasn't demolished, he would still keep the old format. It's just that it's a new school and the headteacher wanted everything new. I bet you if I go back to that place, they will still have the same XP setup as they've had from the start, and probably will continue to do so.

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The crucial difference here is that with linux you can still carry on using older versions of the O/S for as long as you want until the newer versions are stabilised or packages fixed. i.e. We can keep the whole corporation on the same O/S for as long as we want, and we can decide when we want to perform the upgrade (after software has been tested).

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Originally Posted by penagate

Why can't you do that with Windows? Just disable automatic updates across the entire network.

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Aha, because when we buy new computers (for new employees) we have to buy a new O/S license. At present, there are still various options for getting XP, but none of them are easy, and I doubt if they will be available for much longer.

Also, when we migrate users to new machines some of the old machines have the OEM version of XP (which means it can't be transferred to a new computer). So again, we have to buy a new license. (Note: The cost of the license is not an issue, to be honest $200-$300 for an O/S license seems quite reasonable to me on top of the cost of the hardware, but it would be highly irresponsible of me to buy an O/S that doesn't do what my employees need it to do, hence we'd rather stay on XP until the issues with Vista are sorted).

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Originally Posted by tommygrayson

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Use Windows Server 2008. It has Virtual Server features so that you can simulate a testing lab on a single computer. You can install different OS's there for your testing pleasure.

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Virtual Server (Or Virtual PC) is actually a free product that you can download from Microsoft and install on a few different operating systems to do testing.

I have Virtual Server 2005 R2 installed on my XP Pro machine, and I have every Windows OS from 98 through Vista installed as a virtual machine so I can test my software on it.

kleinma, have they solved that issue of the Virtual PCs not being able to install Linux properly?

You'll be able to install fine, but the time will go out of sync, you will send multiple keystrokes for one keystroke, and your mouse cursor may not respond.

Use sun virtualbox. It is free and has some nice features. Don't use vmware's free product. Vmware is clunky and it slowed my computer down.

I do use it. Ever since it came with my Linux box I've been hooked too it. VMWare's free proudcts are too bothersome to use. I always have to download a hard drive, set up the file so it reads from the right ISO, etc. I don't remember the free player slowing my computer down, but I don't exactly think highly of their free virtualisation software.

depends on the linux distro. I was on a beta to try out the tools for Suse Linux and it worked pretty well running in Virtual Server 2005.

You don't get quite the same toolset as you do for Windows, but you get some performance improvements and I have not seen the issue with the multiple keystrokes. I did see that when testing Ubuntu on Virtual Server.

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Originally Posted by kregg

kleinma, have they solved that issue of the Virtual PCs not being able to install Linux properly?

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I just recently installed OpenSUSE on MS VirtualPC2007 and it was working fine. I recall reading somewhere that the main problem was that Linux runs at 24bit colour depth, and this was causing MSVPC to "garble" the display.

Depending on what kind of machine you have, MSVPC takes very little resources. A few spikes in CPU usage while the virtual machine starts up, but after that, nothing too intense. The only thing I dislike about MS Virtual PC is the fact that you can't change the emulated graphics card. I suppose this is normal and to be expected, but I'd like to at least see two or three options.

Oh well... I guess a Virtual Machine is not really the place to test DirectX development in any case. :rolleyes:

Graphics isn't virtual machine's forte. And yes, the 24bit colour depth was my problem, and I always had that problem. I personally like Virtualbox, but I was wondering if VPC had stepped up to the plate.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

Virtual Server (Or Virtual PC) is actually a free product that you can download from Microsoft and install on a few different operating systems to do testing.

I have Virtual Server 2005 R2 installed on my XP Pro machine, and I have every Windows OS from 98 through Vista installed as a virtual machine so I can test my software on it.

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Thanks kleinma. Forgot to mention that you could also download and install Virtual PC for other versions of Windows.

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Originally Posted by Arrow_Raider

You'll be able to install fine, but the time will go out of sync

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