Diminishing Returns from More Technology

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Im going to quote the poster "Looney" from another Vista thread (credit to him) its simple:

Better security than XP.
Better networking than XP.
Better GUI than XP.
Better memory capability than XP.
Better performance than XP.
Better search and indexing than XP.

So whats the issue?

Security?....that is still left to be seen, but hopefully yes especially for home users.
Networking?....recent reviews have showed slower networking performance in Vista compared to XP. Hopefully its just driver issues though.
GUI?....Its not better, its just different.
Memory?....can better use more memory, but eats gobs of it up itself so you need more anyway.
Performance?....WTF, No.
Search and Indexing?....Yes

 

[rajasekharan]

i am waiting for service pack 1 to hit in vista before i switch it as primary o.s . or all nvidia and creative drivers gets sorted out .which ever is early , till then i will stick with xp. after all xp and vista is from the same company , why quarrel .

 

[SinNisTeR]

Originally posted by: Chadder007

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Im going to quote the poster "Looney" from another Vista thread (credit to him) its simple:

Better security than XP.
Better networking than XP.
Better GUI than XP.
Better memory capability than XP.
Better performance than XP.
Better search and indexing than XP.

So whats the issue?

Security?....that is still left to be seen, but hopefully yes especially for home users.
Networking?....recent reviews have showed slower networking performance in Vista compared to XP. Hopefully its just driver issues though.
GUI?....Its not better, its just different.
Memory?....can better use more memory, but eats gobs of it up itself so you need more anyway.
Performance?....WTF, No.
Search and Indexing?....NO - Google desktop spanks it in every way possible

Battery life?.... worse!

Fixed.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Chadder007

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Im going to quote the poster "Looney" from another Vista thread (credit to him) its simple:

Better security than XP.
Better networking than XP.
Better GUI than XP.
Better memory capability than XP.
Better performance than XP.
Better search and indexing than XP.

So whats the issue?

Security?....that is still left to be seen, but hopefully yes especially for home users.

Vista has better security. Will it be enough? who knows. I think the argument between XP and Vista security is over though.

Networking?....recent reviews have showed slower networking performance in Vista compared to XP. Hopefully its just driver issues though.

On a properly functioning machine Vista networking is faster. I've picked apart network traces to see this packet by packet with my own eyes. If someone is seeing something else then they have a 3rd party app or driver issue interfering with things.

GUI?....Its not better, its just different.

No, it's better. All other things aside the GUI will consume less CPU than the equivalent XP box. If your subjective observations are different so be it, but objectively it is definately better.

Memory?....can better use more memory, but eats gobs of it up itself so you need more anyway.

If you put the same memory in an XP and Vista box, Vista will use the memory much more efficiently. Vista "using more memory" is by design. Unused memory is wasted memory. While your XP box is scurryign to pull things into memory your Vista box will be busy executing the task you asked it to do instead.

Performance?....WTF, No.

Great argument. Got any supporting facts for "WTF, no"? On a box designed for Vista, Vista will run circles around XP. On an old POS XP might do better, but then again so would DOS.

Search and Indexing?....Yes

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: SinNisTeR

Originally posted by: Chadder007

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Im going to quote the poster "Looney" from another Vista thread (credit to him) its simple:

Better security than XP.
Better networking than XP.
Better GUI than XP.
Better memory capability than XP.
Better performance than XP.
Better search and indexing than XP.

So whats the issue?

Security?....that is still left to be seen, but hopefully yes especially for home users.
Networking?....recent reviews have showed slower networking performance in Vista compared to XP. Hopefully its just driver issues though.
GUI?....Its not better, its just different.
Memory?....can better use more memory, but eats gobs of it up itself so you need more anyway.
Performance?....WTF, No.
Search and Indexing?....NO - Google desktop spanks it in every way possible

Battery life?.... worse!

Fixed.

Weren't there privacy issues with google desktop?

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: wwswimming
all i'm saying is that XP is solid, & Vista is not yet solid, based on Gruener's article and the Geeksquad warning.

by "solid" i mean a clean half hour install that you can bet a project schedule on.

Haha Geeksquad???

I think you have your cause and correlation mixed up my friend.

If Geeksquad says Vista has problems then likely it does...for them. You put 10 billion dollars of R&D and testing into something then the kid making $15/hr says there is a problem with it??? Do you think that possibly, just possibly the $15/hr kid is a fvcking idiot who doesn't know how to properly install an OS the way it was intended?


If Vista isn't for you that's a bummer. All the people around AT that I generally consider to be sharp are reporting no problems at all.

If you haven't even installed it, then your opinion on it is pretty much a regurgitation of FUD you've swallowed elsewhere. Please spread Facts instead. If you don't have any, don't contribute to the discussion.

 

[StopSign]

I've had Vista RTM since November but I still use XP because it's set up the way I like it at the moment. At the time driver support was rather bad, such as beta nVidia drivers, no printer driver, etc. I'm also much more accustomed to the XP GUI, although Vista might be considered more intuitive. For the moment I'll stick with XP.

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: wwswimming
all i'm saying is that XP is solid, & Vista is not yet solid, based on Gruener's article and the Geeksquad warning.

by "solid" i mean a clean half hour install that you can bet a project schedule on.

Haha Geeksquad???

I think you have your cause and correlation mixed up my friend.

If Geeksquad says Vista has problems then likely it does...for them. You put 10 billion dollars of R&D and testing into something then the kid making $15/hr says there is a problem with it??? Do you think that possibly, just possibly the $15/hr kid is a fvcking idiot who doesn't know how to properly install an OS the way it was intended?


If Vista isn't for you that's a bummer. All the people around AT that I generally consider to be sharp are reporting no problems at all.

If you haven't even installed it, then your opinion on it is pretty much a regurgitation of FUD you've swallowed elsewhere. Please spread Facts instead. If you don't have any, don't contribute to the discussion.

"ALL" people are reporting "NO PROBLEM AT ALL"? I find that hard to believe. Even with XP being out for such a long time, there are still bugs being reported.

I am not trying to bash Vista, but you are a little over the top in saying how wonderful it is. Like any new OS, there is major driver support issue with Vista. And since bunch of the code were re-written, like the whole networking part of it. It is gonna take sometime for software, driver and other ppl to catch up. I am not saying it's MS's fault. But it is a fact that if you, or business more importantly, jump on Vista right now, it is more likely to encounter issue with Vista compared to the tested XP.

Oh and yeah there are bunch of new and wonderful features that comes with Vista. Like superfetch and indexing/search. Well but remember for the OS to do all those wonderful things, it needs all kinda background services to prepare for it. That's the reason I uninstalled google desktop search because I don't want my computer to spend time indexing files when I don't search for my file that often.

Go look at Tom's hardware review on Vista performance. As it stands, Vista performance is worse than XP. Maybe as software and drivers improve, the performance is gonna improve. But as it is now, the "more" technology MS put into Vista, the return doesn't necessary mean better.

 

[Smilin]

You have reading comprehension problems.

I didn't say "all people". Go read again and don't quote me out of context to change the meaning of what I said.



Otherwise I generally agree with you. It's a new OS and some problems are to be expected. The early months will be particularly tough for some drivers. However, with any common sense at all you should be able to get the thing running properly. Loading 3rd party crap that was intended for XP, trying to force some XP drivers, loading on circa 2003 hardware and other such idiocy doesn't really count as a problem with Vista. If Geeksquad is having problems I'm going to blame them, not the OS. This has more to do with what I know about Geeksquad than what I know about Vista.

Why would you disable indexing/search? If you don't actually make use of it so what? That's what 'background' is for. If it doesn't actually background and instead causes a performance hit I would understand but for Vista at least this isn't the case.

 

[SinNisTeR]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: SinNisTeR

Originally posted by: Chadder007

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Im going to quote the poster "Looney" from another Vista thread (credit to him) its simple:

Better security than XP.
Better networking than XP.
Better GUI than XP.
Better memory capability than XP.
Better performance than XP.
Better search and indexing than XP.

So whats the issue?

Security?....that is still left to be seen, but hopefully yes especially for home users.
Networking?....recent reviews have showed slower networking performance in Vista compared to XP. Hopefully its just driver issues though.
GUI?....Its not better, its just different.
Memory?....can better use more memory, but eats gobs of it up itself so you need more anyway.
Performance?....WTF, No.
Search and Indexing?....NO - Google desktop spanks it in every way possible

Battery life?.... worse!

Fixed.

Weren't there privacy issues with google desktop?

To be honest, I'm not sure. All I know is that when I used google desktop a year ago, it was faster than Vista search on a system with same specs. This could be due to a host of reasons; maybe since Vista requires more RAM and has a bigger overhead it may seem slower than google desktop on xp...

EDIT: forgot to hit quote...

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: wwswimming
at some point, people do benefit from asking, "is this additional technology really helping us?"

i think XP is great. everything i am hearing about Vista leaves me with the feeling, "God almighty, why "upgrade", unless i want to be taking the Lord's name in vain ?"

circa February 2007, Vista is NOT an upgrade. it is a downgrade. i'm glad to hear MS will be supporting XP till about 2011.

There are quite a few advances, but yes you have to ask yourself are they useful to you at present. Some people will want to get the OS straight away. Others will wait and see and choose the best time. Others won't want to change at all. Most businesses will be in the second category as usual.

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: sam509

Originally posted by: wwswimming

for reference, Wolfgang Gruener's description of his upgrade experience, entitled, "A Vista upgrade nightmare".

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/01/opinion_vista_upgrade/

his experience with Vista does not sound like an upgrade.

some of you appear to be taking my comments very personally. if i saw a post saying, "XP not, I'm sticking with Windows 2000 Professional", i could care less. so why do you guys care if someone takes a wait and see approach to Vista, and broaches the subject of diminishing returns from more technology ?

you're behaving as if my post threatens your survival. it's not normal for a person to experience raised epinephrine levels (gets upset) because someone questions a new OS, based on a few articles.

my guess is that some of the people that posted have a financial interest in quashing conversation about Vista upgrade problems.

all i'm saying is that XP is solid, & Vista is not yet solid, based on Gruener's article and the Geeksquad warning.

by "solid" i mean a clean half hour install that you can bet a project schedule on.

- - -

You don?t know anything as you have not done a actual install or upgrade? you are parroting what you think other people know? I like to actually find things out for myself and I have found Vista solid, easy to install and stable.

i thought we came to websites like Anandtech to get information about new operating systems, among other things.

if we were to apply your reasoning to cars, you would have to buy a Corvair and get burned in a crash, instead of relying on Nader's book about GM.

i agree, learn by doing is a great way to learn. it can also be very time consuming.

 

[bendixG15]

I did buy a Corvair.....Nadar was wrong...He killed a good car....
I was there.....His book critised the wheel axle design that was no longer in production.

As far as Windows updates are concerned, I am past that stage of development.
Microsoft has to do something with all that money, and all they know how to do
is to "improve" the old Windows.

People did not stand in line all night at CompUSA to buy Vista the way they did for 98.

Five years from now, the post will be... How did you guys ever survive with a crappy OS like Vista .....

 

[merk]

I would say vista is an improvement over xp ... but not enough of an improvement that i would pay for it. Fortunately I got a free copy from MS so i didnt have to pay for it, and so I am using it and have been using it for a few months now.

The only issues i've encountered are basically the same issues i encounter every time ms comes out with a new OS - compatibility. I occasionally run across the driver or software that doesnt work in vista. But so far its been pretty smooth sailing with almost no items that couldnt eventually be made to work even if there were problems initially.

My biggest beef with vista is the DRM stuff they've put into it. It caters to the big media companies and squashes the end user. Although as of yet, it hasnt caused me any problems. But then again, i havent tried making any copies of a dvd yet either

 

[Nothinman]

My biggest beef with vista is the DRM stuff they've put into it. It caters to the big media companies and squashes the end user. Although as of yet, it hasnt caused me any problems. But then again, i havent tried making any copies of a dvd yet either

MS isn't catering to anyone but you with regards to DRM, if they hadn't included it they would have squashed your ability to decide if you want to play protected content. Now that you have the ability to decide whether protected content is worth the money and hassle you can vote with your wallet.

 

[merk]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

My biggest beef with vista is the DRM stuff they've put into it. It caters to the big media companies and squashes the end user. Although as of yet, it hasnt caused me any problems. But then again, i havent tried making any copies of a dvd yet either

MS isn't catering to anyone but you with regards to DRM, if they hadn't included it they would have squashed your ability to decide if you want to play protected content. Now that you have the ability to decide whether protected content is worth the money and hassle you can vote with your wallet.

Or they could have said to the media companies - if you want a share of the windows media market, you'll play by our rules, we wont play by yours.

Most people probably wont run into problems with the DRM stuff because they dont know enough to even think about wanting to make any sort of copies or playlists etc. So if the small minority that do like that ability, and are supposed to have that ability, decide not to buy, its not going to do much of anything in my opinion.

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: merk

Originally posted by: Nothinman

My biggest beef with vista is the DRM stuff they've put into it. It caters to the big media companies and squashes the end user. Although as of yet, it hasnt caused me any problems. But then again, i havent tried making any copies of a dvd yet either

MS isn't catering to anyone but you with regards to DRM, if they hadn't included it they would have squashed your ability to decide if you want to play protected content. Now that you have the ability to decide whether protected content is worth the money and hassle you can vote with your wallet.

Or they could have said to the media companies - if you want a share of the windows media market, you'll play by our rules, we wont play by yours.

Most people probably wont run into problems with the DRM stuff because they dont know enough to even think about wanting to make any sort of copies or playlists etc. So if the small minority that do like that ability, and are supposed to have that ability, decide not to buy, its not going to do much of anything in my opinion.

Doesn't make business sense. Why throw all their capital, monetary and otherwise, behind opening it up? If they can succeed in establishing a proprietary protected media path and get the content producers to play ball, then they will accomplish two things at once: gain benefits for their customers and further establish proprietary advantage for their operating system.

 

[merk]

What benefits are the customers gaining by loosing the ability to copy their own media if they want to?

And i never said it made business sense for MS to open things up. I'm mainly just saying it sucks I do think though that if they had pushed for opening things up a bit more, they could have pushed the media people into it without loosing any money.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: merk
What benefits are the customers gaining by loosing the ability to copy their own media if they want to?

What are you refering to, until cracking tools became widespread, customers never had the ability to copy DVD's. The the benefit is the availability of higher quality content (e.g. HDDVD and Blueray disks)

Bill

 

[Nothinman]

Or they could have said to the media companies - if you want a share of the windows media market, you'll play by our rules, we wont play by yours.

And then people would cry out about how they're abusing their monopoly to manipulate the media companies. It's a lose-lose situation for MS.

 

[merk]

Originally posted by: bsobel
What are you refering to, until cracking tools became widespread, customers never had the ability to copy DVD's. The the benefit is the availability of higher quality content (e.g. HDDVD and Blueray disks)
Bill

But we are supposed to be able to make backup copies of anything we own. And the 'benefit' of having the higher content is precisely what i am talking about when i said if MS had pushed a little, they probably could have given us access to that content without putting even more DRM in the way. Sorry if i didnt explain that clearly.

 

[merk]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
And then people would cry out about how they're abusing their monopoly to manipulate the media companies. It's a lose-lose situation for MS.

I have a hard time seeing anyone, other then the media companies themselves, crying about MS abusing their power by pushing for more open rights with digital media. When was the last time you saw a group of people feeling sorry for the RIAA?

 

[Nothinman]

I have a hard time seeing anyone, other then the media companies themselves, crying about MS abusing their power by pushing for more open rights with digital media. When was the last time you saw a group of people feeling sorry for the RIAA?

While I don't feel sorry for the RIAA I also don't feel sorry for MS and wouldn't support MS forcing them to do what whatever they say to make their media playable in Windows. Like it or not the RIAA and MPAA own the rights to their content so they get to set the rules on how it can be viewed.

 

[stash]

Baby steps. Getting the agreement with CableLabs to allow any kind of digital cable PVR capabilities (through DCT, formally known as OCUR), was huge. Hopefully there the cable industry (and other media groups) will continue to understand that times are a changin' and we'll see less of these draconian restrictions.

 

[merk]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
While I don't feel sorry for the RIAA I also don't feel sorry for MS and wouldn't support MS forcing them to do what whatever they say to make their media playable in Windows. Like it or not the RIAA and MPAA own the rights to their content so they get to set the rules on how it can be viewed.

Technically, we set the rules by voting for the people who are in office who allow the media companies to do what they want According to fair use, we are supposed to be able to make backup copies of any media we legally own. But according to the DMCA, it's illegal to break copy protection, even though we are supposed to be able to make copies.

So technically, we can make copies of everything we own, as long as we can do it without breaking copy protection

And if we just want to talk about dollars and cents (and common sense) the media industry is just being stupid and just slowing down the inevitable. Just like they tried to squash VCR's because they didnt want people copying stuff, and now they are trying to squash digital media and everything that entails. People will always find ways around copy protection. Copy protection on games is an utter joke. They only thing it does it add cost to the game and additional technical support issues. It gets cracked before the game even hits the store shelves. And the same thing is happening to the HD content. They've already cracked that...and they'll keep cracking it.

The media companies will eventually change when they realize they'll make more money using a carrot then they will using a stick.

I think we've digressed off the original thread though, so if anyone wants to continue this, maybe we should split off onto a new thread. Although i dont know if I have the enthusiasm to keep discussing this