NationStates Jolt Archive

Windows Vista, Office 2007 Expelled From British Schools

A British educational report suggests the upgrade would increase costs and create software compatibility problems while providing little benefit.

January 11, 2008 02:03 PM

The agency that governs educational technology in the United Kingdom has advised schools in the country to keep Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system and its Office 2007 software out of the classroom and administrative offices.

"Upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended," said the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, also known as Becta, in a report issued this week.

Becta officials said a study the group commissioned found that upgrading school systems from Windows XP to Vista and Office 2007 would increase costs and create software compatibility problems while providing little benefit.http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205602879

Vista is a Fat Bloated OS.. its slower than XP and slower than the latest Mac OS.

compatibility problems with graphics as it a hog for it, as i was told by someone who had two graphics card running find it was a graphics hog ,so they went back to XP

i dunno...i've had my vista notebook for a semester now and i love it.

i dunno...i've had my vista notebook for a semester now and i love it.you really shouldn't have personal relationships with technical devices...

Well they're right, and Microsoft's strive for "teh slow, but pretty" has been annoying me since I updated to IE7, opening that piece of crap for the first time is what made me switch to FireFox.

i dunno...i've had my vista notebook for a semester now and i love it.

I've had it from day one on my laptop; it works fine.


Well they're right, and Microsoft's strive for "teh slow, but pretty" has been annoying me since I updated to IE7, opening that piece of crap for the first time is what made me switch to FireFox.
IE7=/= pretty

you really shouldn't have personal relationships with technical devices...

*remembers lovedos*
Wanna slide a floppy into my slot ?

IE7=/= pretty

I said that's what they're going for, not what they're achieving. Although personally I prefer the look of XP with the classic boxy task-bar anyway, so they're not going to win me over with their curvier and shinier buttons.

since I updated to IE7, opening that piece of crap for the first time is what made me switch to FireFox.


Me too:)

IE7=/= pretty? it works exactly as any older version.

Linux in our schools?

I've reached the point where I am seriously considering buying XP. Vista came with my new computer, and I am not usually a Microsoft basher (far from it, I wouldn't be caught dead with a Mac), but it has been nothing but trouble for me, personally.

I keep getting the weirdest problems like loosing the ability to open things, or save, then losing the ability to open things, or click on links, then losing the ability to open tabs, then losing the ability to click on restart, then losing the ability to ctrl+alt+delete.

I've tried system restores to the day one, but it all starts again within a couple hours.

Linux in our schools?

Why not ? Many universities use it. Good preparation.
Lets teach the toddlers LaTeX as well.

Why not ? Many universities use it. Good preparation.
Lets teach the toddlers LaTeX as well.

of course do you think the British government is ready to take on Microsoft? :D

Why not ? Many universities use it. Good preparation.
Lets teach the toddlers LaTeX as well.

Why Linux? I don't think many of the students use Linux at home and won't use it in the future.
I don't see why i should use Linux. My XP works fine (i don't know whats about Vista but nobody forces you to install it) i have no security problems. Office 2003 works very well, too. Only the IE 7 is something i don't use...

I can't understand why everybody hates microsoft only because they're everywhere where computers are...

btw: Many errors can be found 30cm in front of the screen :)

My XP works fine (i don't know whats about Vista but nobody forces you to install it) i have no security problems. Office 2003 works very well, too. Only the IE 7 is something i don't use...

did you pay for your XP? do you have to buy any the add-on software? can you effectively modify anything you want?

*rests case*

btw: Many errors can be found 30cm in front of the screen :)

the keyboard? seriously do you have your eyes touching the screen or something :confused:

Why Linux?

Why universities use it ? Low price, decent security, decent stability and lots of possibilities for customisation. It also offers facilities for programming and creating networks (which is very useful for computer sciences, physics, chemistry and so on) .
Side benefit: less games (it is a uni pc after all).

I don't see why i should use Linux.

Operating systems are tools. Some tools are better suited for some circumstances. If your circumstances fit XP best, use XP.
However, teaching children how to use a system that is popular among scientists and academics could have benefits. Ideally it should not be taught exclusively - but costs are a factor in education.

yur then what they going to use to run the nukes systems

I am quite certain the nuke control systems of most countries were not designed by microsoft ;)

of course do you think the British government is ready to take on Microsoft? :D

yur then what they going to use to run the nukes systems

Vista is a Fat Bloated OS.. its slower than XP and slower than the latest Mac OS.
You can say that again, I mean try running business edition, it's like chug-chug central.

I am quite certain the nuke control systems of most countries were not designed by microsoft ;)

oh that goes blaming them for WW3 when i tell the grandkids why it started:(:p

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205602879

Vista is a Fat Bloated OS.. its slower than XP and slower than the latest Mac OS.

I don't know, I have Vista and it runs great. However, I also have 2GB of Memory...soo.....yea...

I have Vista and see no improvement over XP other than in eye-candy. In fact, with the compatibility issues it's less functional for me than XP was. Example: my printer doesn't have Vista software nor is HP planning on porting the XP drivers over to Vista so I'm stuck with using another printer's drivers and software at the advice of HP.

Okay - that's a HP issue rather than a Microsoft issue but it does mean I can now do less with my computer now than I could. Of the four possible solutions (HP fixes the software, MS fixes Vista so the HP software runs, I buy a new Vista compatible printer, or accept the situation as it is) only one of those is going to happen. At least until this printer breaks and I need to buy a new one.

But I did find a solution to getting iTunes up-and-running on Vista 64-bit thanks to third-party software.

Personally, I'm building up the courage to make this computer dual-boot with Vista and Ubuntu. I'll use the later for most things, and Vista only for those things that I need to like connecting my mobile phone to Outlook so that I can sync my contacts.

My old laptop died and I had no choice but get Vista. I don't mind it, its got a few great things I like - such as my photo slideshow on the sidebar and the search function in the start menu.

Unfortunately it doesn't agree with my Epson multifunction, my HP photo printer or my Fuji digital camera.

Apparently my Uni is going to Vista late 2008 (I assume over the summer holidays to avoid too many mishaps) so it will be good to have the know how before they change cos I'm not 100% computer savvy!

You can say that again, I mean try running business edition, it's like chug-chug central.My laptop game bundled with Vista Business edition. I was struggling to get linux to play a hollywood DVD and gave up and just booted Vista instead thinking it'd have the codecs. But no... Business edition is indeed a a crippled version. I has to pay extra if I want to play DVDs on Business edition.

I don't know, I have Vista and it runs great. However, I also have 2GB of Memory...soo.....yea...
I installed Linuxen, which run fine with 128 MB of RAM (yes, current Linuxen with X11).

Here's an honest question: does Vista offer the kind of enhanced capabilities, efficiency (i.e. optimizing the use of multicore systems), ease of use, and reliability necessary to justify an upgrade?

I mean, I'd probably end up with it on my next computer, if only for practical reasons, but I don't see the justification in upgrading to something that honestly seems to be little different than a cosmetic tweak of the same interface that has been around since 1995 or so. Upgrades are, well, upgrades, so in order to justify the cost there has to be the features to back it up.

I've had compatibility issues with Vista on all the the PCs that I have it installed on (2 PCs with Vista Business and 1 laptop that came with Vista Home preinstalled). These have ranged from being unable to get older software running, through being unable to get compatible printer drivers and lockups being caused by 3rd party firewalls. All these are most likely just teething troubles and are fair enough - similar things happened when I started using XP a few years back, and I'm sure they'll be sorted out soon.

MY real issue with Vista is just how slow it is - i.e. just how bloated it seems to be. For example, the new laptop that I bought with Vista Home preinstalled on it was horrifically slow. It sometimes takes almost 5 minutes to finish booting up and initialising all the services that it seems to think are required and then, to add insult to the mix, from time to time decides that I've done something that it really doesn't like and requires me to reactivate the OS with Microsoft before it will let me do anything. The unit in question is not particularly highly specced - it's a dual core (2x1.6GHz) with 1Gb of RAM - but it should be fast enough. I shrank the Vista partition down to about 10Gb and installed XP Pro on the remaining space as a dual boot option, and it runs like a dream under XP.

I've done the same with my other PCs. All of them run more smoothly under XP than under Vista. That said, the same problems existed when I upgraded my various bits and pieces from Windows 98SE/Windows 2000 to XP. Prior to the release of Service Pack 1 for Windows XP in mid 2002 XP was also slow, buggy and full of compatibility problems.

Vista is not all bad. Apart from the obvious - the eye candy - it also seems to have far better network data handling, as evidenced by the far faster download speeds that I get when I'm using it, and the far faster data transfer between PCs that I get when transferring files. It also has - for those who do not wish to spend time learning about or paying attention to such things - better security features and is far harder to compromise unwittingly. These same 'security' features are almost certainly the ones that cause it to run so slowly, however, and it's a compromise that I just don't want to make.

It almost seems to me that successive Microsoft OSs are written to overuse whatever the hardware of the day happens to be. I find it ridiculous that a default installation of Vista Business Edition on a high spec PC will run at more or less the same speed as a default installation of 98SE ran on a Pentium III box. Worse still, each new iteration of Windows seems to take more control from the user and replace it with hidden settings - sure, most of them can be tweaked if you spend the time finding where they've been buried but I object to having to do it.

The cynic in me might say that this continual dumbing down of the user interface is a deliberate act to dissuade end users from tweaking the OS to suit themselves, so that they always have to come back to MS to fix their problems. I'm not that paranoid about it, though, it just looks like sharp business practice. Those who want full control over how their PC goes about things will just install one of the myriad of linux distros, after all.

I'm sure once the first Service Pack has been released, and patched until it works as intended, that the various incarnations of Vista will improve, just as XP did. I know of a number of local businesses who are not even going to consider upgrading to Vista until this has happened, and I'd advise any home users who are considering it to wait for the service packs, too.

My laptop game bundled with Vista Business edition. I was struggling to get linux to play a hollywood DVD and gave up and just booted Vista instead thinking it'd have the codecs. But no... Business edition is indeed a a crippled version. I has to pay extra if I want to play DVDs on Business edition.

It wouldn't be Microsoft if they didn't leave out an important part which you have to pay more money for, I mean I was expecting to get my 360 empty with a note on it saying 'you have to pay another 100$ for the hard drive':p

It almost seems to me that successive Microsoft OSs are written to overuse whatever the hardware of the day happens to be. I find it ridiculous that a default installation of Vista Business Edition on a high spec PC will run at more or less the same speed as a default installation of 98SE ran on a Pentium III box. Worse still, each new iteration of Windows seems to take more control from the user and replace it with hidden settings - sure, most of them can be tweaked if you spend the time finding where they've been buried but I object to having to do it.

Actually, that does concern me. When I get my quadcore, or more likely some exponential over that (since I will be buying them once I graduate college and have the income to do so) computer, I want to be able to run multiple tasks optimally rather than have the system take a huge shit on performance because it's only using one or two cores rather than threading it to ensure optimal performance.

For example, I want to be able to run a virus scan, run a spyware scan, go online, work on some accounting spreadsheets, run BOINC, run my torrents and maybe even have some high-definition TV or music playing at the same time and suffer little or no appreciable performance loss, or at least not so much that I can actually do these things at the same time. If I tried that now, it would pretty much be an OH GOD I CAN WAIT FOREVER situation.

Actually, that does concern me. When I get my quadcore, or more likely some exponential over that (since I will be buying them once I graduate college and have the income to do so) computer, I want to be able to run multiple tasks optimally rather than have the system take a huge shit on performance because it's only using one or two cores rather than threading it to ensure optimal performance.

For example, I want to be able to run a virus scan, run a spyware scan, go online, work on some accounting spreadsheets, run BOINC, run my torrents and maybe even have some high-definition TV or music playing at the same time and suffer little or no appreciable performance loss, or at least not so much that I can actually do these things at the same time. If I tried that now, it would pretty much be an OH GOD I CAN WAIT FOREVER situation.

i'am with you on that

I want to be able to run a virus scan, run a spyware scan, go online, work on some accounting spreadsheets, run BOINC, run my torrents and maybe even have some high-definition TV or music playing at the same time and suffer little or no appreciable performance loss
True multitasking is still not a realistic option with the hardware and OSs that are currently available (i.e. in mass production), and this is the focus of much of the research into distributed computing at the moment. There's a pretty succinct explanation of why this is the case here (http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_4.html#dalrymple) that I've snipped a piece out of and quoted below;

Imagine if your company or organization had one fellow [the CPU] who sat in an isolated office, and refused to talk with anyone except his two most trusted deputies [the Northbridge and Southbridge], through which all the actual work the company does must be funneled. Because this one man — let's call him Bob — is so overloaded doing all the work of the entire company, he has several assistants [memory controllers] who remember everything for him. They do this through a complex system [virtual memory] of file cabinets of various sizes [physical memories], the organization over which they have strictly limited autonomy.

Because it is faster to find things in the smaller cabinets [RAM], where there is less to sift through, Bob asks them to put the most commonly used information there. But since he is constantly switching between different tasks, the assistants must swap in and out the files in the smaller cabinets with those in the larger ones whenever Bob works on something different ["thrashing"]. The largest file cabinet is humongous, and rotates slowly in front of a narrow slit [magnetic storage]. The assistant in charge of it must simply wait for the right folder to appear in front of him before passing it along [disk latency].

Any communication with customers must be handled through a team of receptionists [I/O controllers] who don't take the initiative to relay requests to one of Bob's deputies. When Bob needs customer input to continue on a difficult problem, he drops what he is doing to chase after his deputy to chase after a receptionist to chase down the customer, thus preventing work for other customers to be done in that time.

This model is clearly horrendous for numerous reasons. If any staff member goes out to lunch, the whole operation is likely to grind to a halt. Tasks that ought to be quite simple turn out to take a lot of time, since Bob must re-acquaint himself with the issues in question. If a spy gains Bob's trust, all is lost. The only way to make the model any better without giving up and starting over is to hire people who just do their work faster and spend more hours in the office. And yet, this is the way almost every computer in the world operates today.

It is much more sane to hire a large pool of individuals, and, depending on slow-changing customer needs, organize them into business units and assign them to customer accounts. Each person keeps track of his own small workload, and everyone can work on a separate task simultaneously. If the company suddenly acquires new customers, it can recruit more staff instead of forcing Bob to work overtime. If a certain customer demands more attention than was foreseen, more people can be devoted to the effort. And perhaps most importantly, collaboration with other businesses becomes far more meaningful than the highly coded, formal game of telephone that Bob must play with Frank, who works in a similar position at another corporation [a server]. Essentially, this is a business model problem as much as a computer science one.

These complaints only scratch the surface of the design flaws of today's computers. On an extremely low level, with voltages, charge, and transistors, energy is handled recklessly, causing tremendous heat, which would melt the parts in a matter of seconds were it not for the noisy cooling systems we find in most computers. And on a high level, software engineers have constructed a city of competing abstractions based on the fundamentally flawed "CPU" idea.

So I have changed my mind. I used to believe that computers were on the right track, but now I think the right thing to do is to move forward from our 1950s models to a ground-up, fundamentally distributed computing architecture. I started to use computers at 17 months of age and started programming them at 5, so I took the model for granted. But the present stagnation of perceptual computer performance, and the counter-intuitiveness of programming languages, led me to question what I was born into and wonder if there's a better way

Food for thought, eh? :)

It wouldn't be Microsoft if they didn't leave out an important part which you have to pay more money for, I mean I was expecting to get my 360 empty with a note on it saying 'you have to pay another 100$ for the hard drive':pI eventually noticed that the OEM version of Vista had been bundled with the manufacturer's own DVD player (complete with codecs). Very basic, but it works - so I'm happy.

Go for Linux with a copy of Open office

You'll wonder why you ever bothered paying the microsoft tax

Ok you cant play the latest games, but hey , do you really need that in a business computer?

Most of the newer Linux versions will basically self install themselves with about as much difficulty as installing windows without the forever having to reboot the PC everytime you install a driver for something.
As for eye candy, try the beryl/compiz addon to a linux desktop..... makes vista aero look so old.:p

As for the DVD problem mentioned, theres a handy program available for both windows and Linux, its called 'VLC' and runs a lot more video/music formats than win media player

However Vsta will continue to be forced on people as
A, they dont know any better
B Microsoft will refuse to sell XP.................. could you imagine that... a company refusing to sell a profitable item that people prefer :headbang:

True multitasking is still not a realistic option with the hardware and OSs that are currently available (i.e. in mass production), and this is the focus of much of the research into distributed computing at the moment. There's a pretty succinct explanation of why this is the case here (http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_4.html#dalrymple) that I've snipped a piece out of and quoted below;

Food for thought, eh? :)

Very interesting; as a person who devotes a huge amount of CPU time to BOINC projects, the potential distributed models offer is truly staggering. I mean, we're talking thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years of computation being run in a couple...that's pretty impressive. Harnessing this idea and applying it to the entire computer architecture is in my opinion the next big step for the future of the personal computer.

Some interesting progress, especially by IBM, have shown significant performance improvements combined with decreases in heat and energy usage by applying these concepts to the hardware level. It is hardly surprising that they landed some very nice DARPA contracts, in this case for the creation of supercomputers a full generation ahead of their competitors; these technologies are leveraging new ideas and applying them to get around these constraints. No doubt this will also become increasingly widespread in the PC market, both out of economic as well as necessity; the future development of Moore's Law (in the broader sense, not just the transistor sense) will require this kind of transition, and no company in today's environment can risk falling behind by retaining older designs.

Harnessing this idea and applying it to the entire computer architecture is in my opinion the next big step for the future of the personal computer.
It should be the next big step, yes, but I fear that the inertia of established business models in the field - the money that the market leaders have tied up in existing hardware designs and, by extension, software design practices that only work with the existing hardware - will hamper progress.

Still, interesting times, as they say :)

I too am sticking with XP for now. However, I am using Office 2007 and I love it. It plays nice with XP. I can't bring myself to give up XP because I'm a file control freak. I hate the idea of having my computer tell me what I can and cannot do with my files; having my computer check the files before I do anything, like copy from one partition to my shared partition.

I bought a new desktop computer during the holidays which came with Vista Home Premium pre-installed. It's a solid computer whith 1.6Ghz dual core and 2Gb Ram and everything runs great. I haven't had one single problem with Vista yet and it hasn't crashed a single time in three weeks which is a record for me. It feels safe and it looks great! Thought it would suck considering everything I've heard about it.

I bought a new desktop computer during the holidays which came with Vista Home Premium pre-installed. It's a solid computer whith 1.6Ghz dual core and 2Gb Ram and everything runs great. I haven't had one single problem with Vista yet and it hasn't crashed a single time in three weeks which is a record for me. It feels safe and it looks great! Thought it would suck considering everything I've heard about it.

It treats you like a retard by default, has little customisability and has compatibility problems with even recent programs (I really, really am annoyed that it doesn't work properly with Dev-C++. Really annoyed), most of the safety features largely boil down to 'Do you want to do this? Yes? I don't think so, buster - renaming a single file on the desktop, even one that you made, is dangerous!' (yes, that happened to me) but other than that, yeah, it's great. [/sarcasm]
As soon as I fix my sound driver in Ubuntu I am migrating completely. If I want looks then I'll just use Compiz/Beryl.

I have Vista and see no improvement over XP other than in eye-candy. In fact, with the compatibility issues it's less functional for me than XP was. Example: my printer doesn't have Vista software nor is HP planning on porting the XP drivers over to Vista so I'm stuck with using another printer's drivers and software at the advice of HP.

Okay - that's a HP issue rather than a Microsoft issue but it does mean I can now do less with my computer now than I could. Of the four possible solutions (HP fixes the software, MS fixes Vista so the HP software runs, I buy a new Vista compatible printer, or accept the situation as it is) only one of those is going to happen. At least until this printer breaks and I need to buy a new one.

But I did find a solution to getting iTunes up-and-running on Vista 64-bit thanks to third-party software.

Personally, I'm building up the courage to make this computer dual-boot with Vista and Ubuntu. I'll use the later for most things, and Vista only for those things that I need to like connecting my mobile phone to Outlook so that I can sync my contacts.

I love it how when HP don't release Vista drivers, it's HP's fault, but if they don't release Linux drivers, it's Linux's fault.

Anyway, as for the topic: Good, I don't want to have to bring my own machine with me to school to actually be able to work. It's a pity that schools use MS at all, and the IT courses are utterly useless (Here, learn the click sequence to do this in Excel), but it's a start anyway.

As for the DVD problem mentioned, theres a handy program available for both windows and Linux, its called 'VLC' and runs a lot more video/music formats than win media player
VLC isn't yet able to play CSS-encoded DVDs. And when it is I believe its distribution with the codec would be illegal in some countries meaning that it won't be on the Ubuntu repositories with codec. But hopefully soon enough... :)

The new XP SP3 and Vista SP1 are in beta now. Apparently Vista SP1 doesn't really make Vista any faster but XP SP3 does make XP faster.
I am not going to use Linux still as I've got thousands of $$$ of Windows only software sitting around.

Linux in our schools?
They said they didn't want compatibility issues.

My laptop game bundled with Vista Business edition. I was struggling to get linux to play a hollywood DVD and gave up and just booted Vista instead thinking it'd have the codecs. But no... Business edition is indeed a a crippled version. I has to pay extra if I want to play DVDs on Business edition.

Download some codec packs off the Internet. That will get around the codec issue. Or use a different DVD software product like PowerDVD.

They said they didn't want compatibility issues.

I think it's not true OpenOffice can totally replace MS Office. I once installed OpenOffice to see what it was like. The Word Processor and Spreadsheet programs were fine but the database component was close to useless to me. I am yet to see a real replacement for MS Access.

Linux in our schools?
Just say no.

It treats you like a retard by default, has little customisability and has compatibility problems with even recent programs (I really, really am annoyed that it doesn't work properly with Dev-C++. Really annoyed), most of the safety features largely boil down to 'Do you want to do this? Yes? I don't think so, buster - renaming a single file on the desktop, even one that you made, is dangerous!' (yes, that happened to me) but other than that, yeah, it's great. [/sarcasm]
As soon as I fix my sound driver in Ubuntu I am migrating completely. If I want looks then I'll just use Compiz/Beryl.

You can turn off safety features like UAC if they bother you. Personally I don't care if I'm being asked if I want to do something since it just takes a click with the mouse to get over with it. Nothing to cry over.
I can change the names of the files on the desktop without any problem at all. The only problem I've had was when I uninstalled a program but the icon wouldn't disappear from the desktop and I couldn't remove it manually since the program didn't exist. It disappeared when I restarted the computer though.

I only have Vista because it came with the computer but I would never upgrade to it on my old one. I wouldn't even buy it if it wasn't already preinstalled but so far it's worked great and I see no reason to change.

I think it's not true OpenOffice can totally replace MS Office. I once installed OpenOffice to see what it was like. The Word Processor and Spreadsheet programs were fine but the database component was close to useless to me. I am yet to see a real replacement for MS Access.
Agreed. Writer and Calc. are fine, the rest of it is a bit pish, and trying to get the dictionary to just check French (incidentally, you will have to spend quite some time downloading and then installing the bastard) is a complete pain in the arse.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205602879

Vista is a Fat Bloated OS.. its slower than XP and slower than the latest Mac OS.

Well, it's only rubbish if your computer is slow. If you have a fast computer, and tweak it a little, its much much better.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205602879

Vista is a Fat Bloated OS.. its slower than XP and slower than the latest Mac OS.Well, it's only rubbish if your computer is slow. If you have a fast computer, and tweak it a little, its much much better.Vista is slower regardless of your dualcores or your 1 or 2 gigs of Ram..

Let me repeat that
Vista-is-much-slower-on-new-computers-too

Windows XP Significantly Outperforms Vista, Tests Show

Windows XP trounced Windows Vista in all tests, regardless of the versions used or the amount of memory running on the computer, says Devil Mountain Software.

November 27, 2007 -- In the latest Mac versus PC ad, that put-upon Windows guy quietly concedes he's "downgrading" from Vista to XP. He may have good reason: new tests show that the older XP runs common productivity tasks significantly faster than Microsoft's newest operating system.

Researchers at Devil Mountain Software, a Florida-based developer of performance management tools, have posted data from their most recent Windows performance tests -- and Vista, even after it's been upgraded to the new Service Pack 1 beta package, is shown to be a laggard.

Windows XP trounced Windows Vista in all tests -- regardless of the versions used or the amount of memory running on the computer. In fact, XP proved to be roughly twice as fast as Vista in most of the tests.

What's more, the tests showed that the resource-hungry Vista gobbles up most of the additional RAM added to a computer. By upgrading a notebook running Vista SP1 from 1 Gbyte to 2 Gbytes of memory, "we managed to achieve a 'whopping' 4% improvement in OfficeBench throughput," the researchers noted. http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=TON0PX1PTCIVGQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=204203975

Vista is slower regardless of your doublecores or your 1 or 2 gigs of Ram..

Let me repeat that
Vista-is-much-slower-on-new-computers-too
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=TON0PX1PTCIVGQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=204203975

I never said it was faster, just better, of course it takes up more resources, nobody is disputing that. If you have a fast computer, it doesn't matter if it takes up loads of resources, so there's no need to give a shit about whether XP takes up less resources.

did you read the linked article? It says the tests show that Your "fast" computer is slower with Vista.. XP is almost twice as fast.

here Ill post it again for you:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=TON0PX1PTCIVGQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=204203975

... and that is on Top of the multiple compatibly plagues..

Apparently you have never been taught English before.

Better is not the same as faster. They mean different things. Just because XP is faster, does not make it better. What I am also saying is that you won't notice that vista is slow if you have a fast computer, even if XP will run faster (which you also wont notice).

If you have a fast computer...did you read the linked article? It says the tests show that Your "fast" computer is slower with Vista.. XP is almost twice as fast.

here Ill post it again for you:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=TON0PX1PTCIVGQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=204203975

... and that is on Top of the multiple compatibly plagues..

What I am also saying is that you won't notice that vista is slow if you have a fast computer, even if XP will run faster (which you also wont notice).

I have both on a decent computer (and a linux distro as well). I notice.
There is no reason whatsoever for an OS to require that much resources, except lazy progamming.

I have both on a decent computer (and a linux distro as well). I notice.
There is no reason whatsoever for an OS to require that much resources, except lazy progamming.

As do I, vista is on my computer, and my brother runs Xp on his. Both computers are equally fast, yet most of my stuff runs much much smoother on Vista. I don't notice any sort of difference in speed.

As do I, vista is on my computer, and my brother runs Xp on his. Both computers are equally fast, yet most of my stuff runs much much smoother on Vista. I don't notice any sort of difference in speed.Some people notice some dont.. its the same with compatibly issues.. If you ask a Microsoft fan-boy.. he will never notice anything wrong.. and he may even tell you that vista is actually faster :rolleyes:

Yes some people are lucky enough to have all their existing peripherals + softwares Vista-compatible.. but everyone -i know- who has reinstalled XP has told me they noticed the speed difference.

Some people notice some dont.. its the same with compatibly issues.. If you ask a Microsoft fan-boy.. he will never notice anything wrong.. and he may even tell you that vista is actually faster :rolleyes:

Vista searches faster. I will give it that.

Good, the government shouldn't be wasting tax money on unnecessary upgrades.

I will not upgrade to Vista any time soon (if at all) as it offers nothing I would spend that kind of money on.

Vista searches faster. I will give it that.True, I noticed that too (search for myComp files, not Internet search)

but here is a list of the processes that were way slower with Vista.. than with my reinstalled XP.

Opening of Web pages
access/Reading of CD |DVD (HP, sony)
access/reading/writing Hardrive to HarDrive (WD,Seagate)
access/reading/writing between partitions. (WD)
uploading/downloading from mp3 device. (Ipod ,LG,ericsson)
uploading/downloading from digital camera. (HP,Kodak)
and .. some softwares components/devices work randomly..

these are the ones I remember most...

most of these devices are -not even- 6 months old

You can turn off safety features like UAC if they bother you. Personally I don't care if I'm being asked if I want to do something since it just takes a click with the mouse to get over with it. Nothing to cry over.
I can change the names of the files on the desktop without any problem at all. The only problem I've had was when I uninstalled a program but the icon wouldn't disappear from the desktop and I couldn't remove it manually since the program didn't exist. It disappeared when I restarted the computer though.

I only have Vista because it came with the computer but I would never upgrade to it on my old one. I wouldn't even buy it if it wasn't already preinstalled but so far it's worked great and I see no reason to change.

I did turn UAC off as soon as it did that. I only left it on that long out of interest as to how Vista supposedly improved security.
I had a similar problem to the one you mentioned regarding the shortcuts, although in my case they were text files. Several reboots later I finally succeeded in deleting them, and UAC wasn't even on during the period of the problem.

I dislike Vista intensely. It's pretty, I'll grant it that, but if I wanted my OS to be pretty I'd use Compiz/Beryl.

I care not what anyone says, Vista, Office 2007 and IE7 are my favourites.

I tried ubuntu several times, but i wasn't able to install it in the way i wanted (Xp and ubuntu) nobody could help me with my problem and for myself i think i have a good knowledge about computers...
So i'll have my nice XP and i won't change until its really necessary. I would like to try Linux but if it doesn't work...:rolleyes::confused:

I tried ubuntu several times, but i wasn't able to install it in the way i wanted (Xp and ubuntu) nobody could help me with my problem and for myself i think i have a good knowledge about computers...
So i'll have my nice XP and i won't change until its really necessary. I would like to try Linux but if it doesn't work...:rolleyes::confused:
I've dual-booted XP and Ubuntu on a couple of machines in the past, with no problems. There are dozens of step-by-step guides to be found online, if you decide to give it a go some time in the future :)

(edit: This walkthrough (http://apcmag.com/6101/dualboot_windows_xp_and_ubuntu) looks to be pretty much the same as the procedure I used. Just an FYI in case you decide to go for it. )

I care not what anyone says, Vista, Office 2007 and IE7 are my favourites.
Well that's fair enough - if it's good for you, stick with it. I personally haven't seen anything from any incarnation of Office later than Office 2000 that's even tempted me to upgrade that side of things, and I stopped using IE around IEv4 and never went back but as long as you're happy, good for you, I guess.

I did turn UAC off as soon as it did that. I only left it on that long out of interest as to how Vista supposedly improved security.
I had a similar problem to the one you mentioned regarding the shortcuts, although in my case they were text files. Several reboots later I finally succeeded in deleting them, and UAC wasn't even on during the period of the problem.

I dislike Vista intensely. It's pretty, I'll grant it that, but if I wanted my OS to be pretty I'd use Compiz/Beryl.

I think it sucks that almoust all PC:s come with Vista pre-installed. I would rather pay much less for a PC without a pre-installed OS and install whichever OS I want later instead of practically being forced to use the one installed.

Have you upgraded to Vista or have you bought a new computer with it?

I think it sucks that almoust all PC:s come with Vista pre-installed. I would rather pay much less for a PC without a pre-installed OS and install whichever OS I want later instead of practically being forced to use the one installed.

Have you upgraded to Vista or have you bought a new computer with it?
Build your own. There we go. Much cheaper, and the tech support element is about the same (i.e. none) as when you buy something from Dell or whoever.

Vista searches faster. I will give it that.
Windows XP searches fast if you use the shell and dir /s

Well, it's only rubbish if your computer is slow. If you have a fast computer, and tweak it a little, its much much better.

The brand new Intel Dual Core with 2 gigs of memory and the latest NVIDIA graphics down the hall from me came with Vista pre-installed. The damn thing is slow, even managing to crash on its maiden boot/shutdown.

My machine is an Intel Celeron 1.2Ghz with 512 Megs of memory and well-aged NVIDIA graphics (FX 5700LE). I have all the fancy desktop gadgets (http://www.beryl-project.org/) (including all sorts of stuff that Vista only dreams of) and this machine still runs circles around the Vista piece of crap down the hall. My parents offered to purchase me a brand new Vista PC. Answer: For the love of God, NO!!!

The difference? Linux. I'm a full time university student, and I have had absolutely no reason to use Windows in well over two years.

I've had Vista on my laptop since I got it, much to my dismay. I just bought it for this school year, so finding something that would work well and was still running XP was quite impossible. My sound glitches when I only had WMP running, and a few background progams. Not that it's that much of a surprise, though. So Winamp? Same shit. Trying to run Portal is just a joke. I miss XP.

Some people notice some dont.. its the same with compatibly issues.. If you ask a Microsoft fan-boy.. he will never notice anything wrong.. and he may even tell you that vista is actually faster :rolleyes:


Think about this logically, if your computer has say a speed of 4000x, vista uses up 500x and XP uses up 100x, this means that under vista your computer will be 3500x and under xp it will be 3900x. Now lets say that to use up the full 3500x of resources would take a huge number of resource eating programs that you wouldn't normally run. Lets say that as long as about 2900x of resources is being and you have 1100x of resources left, your computer will run really fast. Therefore, in 99.99% of the time, changing between vista and xp will not make a shit of difference as long as your computer has 4000x of power or speed.

(x can represent anything you want to do with resources)

The brand new Intel Dual Core with 2 gigs of memory and the latest NVIDIA graphics down the hall from me came with Vista pre-installed. The damn thing is slow, even managing to crash on its maiden boot/shutdown.


I can't believe that, its configuration is probably fucked up. A few tweaks would fix that, like I said.


My machine is an Intel Celeron 1.2Ghz with 512 Megs of memory and well-aged NVIDIA graphics (FX 5700LE). I have all the fancy desktop gadgets (http://www.beryl-project.org/) (including all sorts of stuff that Vista only dreams of) and this machine still runs circles around the Vista piece of crap down the hall. My parents offered to purchase me a brand new Vista PC. Answer: For the love of God, NO!!!


No shit.


The difference? Linux. I'm a full time university student, and I have had absolutely no reason to use Windows in well over two years.

Well, seeing that 60% of the games and software I own will only run on windows, I have a very good reason to stick with windows.

I think it sucks that almoust all PC:s come with Vista pre-installed. I would rather pay much less for a PC without a pre-installed OS and install whichever OS I want later instead of practically being forced to use the one installed.

Have you upgraded to Vista or have you bought a new computer with it?

Bought.

The only problem with building my own computer is that I don't like desktops - I only use laptops. And laptops are stupid for building and upgrading etc.

Vista searches faster. I will give it that.Does it? I thought the Windows Search available on Vista was also available on XP...

Well, seeing that 60% of the games and software I own will only run on windows, I have a very good reason to stick with windows.

Honestly, that's the only reason why I'd even run Windows. For a work laptop or something I'm not going to use for games, I'd go with a different OS every day of the week.

Computer performance is, after all, pretty damn important to virtually everything for which I use a computer.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205602879

Vista is a Fat Bloated OS.. its slower than XP and slower than the latest Mac OS.

Thats what you get vista for being a FALIURE

I say F for effort and F in conversational skills :p

I care not what anyone says, Vista, Office 2007 and IE7 are my favourites.

I do have to admit, I do like Office 2007. It definitely helps speed up a lot of the kinds of work I do (LP problems, income statements, etc.) by greatly accelerating the work of finding formulas and creating an optimally designed spreadsheet for whatever I'm doing.

It takes a little while to get used to, but I do like it.

Honestly, that's the only reason why I'd even run Windows. For a work laptop or something I'm not going to use for games, I'd go with a different OS every day of the week.

Computer performance is, after all, pretty damn important to virtually everything for which I use a computer.

Well depends on what kind of work.

I'm sorry but open office is just awful, I find Microsoft office to be so much better, if I were to do work which involved basic spreadsheets, databasing and word documents I would definitely stick with windows.

I can't believe that, its configuration is probably fucked up. A few tweaks would fix that, like I said.


But that's the thing. Why is a brand new computer coming messed up, right out of the box? Why is the operating system coming messed up, right out of the box? But of course it's messed up. It's Vista.

There's this theory going around that you get what you pay for. But it seems that since the computer became a mass consumer appliance, this theory no longer applies. Now, you put your money down and you get a steaming pile of crap (with service/support to make it kinda work extra!!!; I smell a scam, myself).

If the mass consumer computer/software market ever gets back around to providing a quality product it will stand by, wake me. In the mean time, F/OSS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/OSS).


Well, seeing that 60% of the games and software I own will only run on windows, I have a very good reason to stick with windows.


Well, see, techinically you don't actually own any of that software. One merely possesses a license to use it.

That's another thing I find quite bizarre about commercial software, indeed "intellectual property" in general. I labor, produce a paycheck, trade that produce, and...I don't actually own anything. Why anyone would continue to voluntarily participate in such a scam is beyond me.

Of course, I don't technically own any of the F/OSS I use either, I merely possess a license to use it. They're free as in gratis, however, because the F/OSS folks seem to understand that trading one's property for nothing is kind of silly.

As far as games go, 99% of the selection out there is complete crap anyway.

But that's the thing. Why is a brand new computer coming messed up, right out of the box? Why is the operating system coming messed up, right out of the box? But of course it's messed up. It's Vista.


Well, I have seen Linux fucked up far more times when its first installed then with Vista.


If the mass consumer computer/software market ever gets back around to providing a quality product it will stand by, wake me. In the mean time, F/OSS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/OSS).


The vast majority of open source software is inferior to commercial software. I mean taking a few random examples: Gimp is much worse then photoshop, Open office is much worse then Word, the only good open source games are ones that are mods of commercial games: there is only a very few amount of good open source stand alone games.


That's another thing I find quite bizarre about commercial software, indeed "intellectual property" in general. I labor, produce a paycheck, trade that produce, and...I don't actually own anything. Why anyone would continue to voluntarily participate in such a scam is beyond me.


To make money, produce businesses, provide jobs and improve the economy etc..


As far as games go, 99% of the selection out there is complete crap anyway.

No it isn't, but again not just games.

The vast majority of open source software is inferior to commercial software. I mean taking a few random examples: Gimp is much worse then photoshop, Open office is much worse then Word, the only good open source games are ones that are mods of commercial games: there is only a very few amount of good open source stand alone games.

Those are anything but random, they're in fact only a few highly visible projects with a port for Windows, and thus your "vast majority" claim only proves that your experience with open source is very, very limited.

How about file managers? Which is the best? Or simple image viewer? Text editor? Video player? Music manager? IRC client? Panel? Window manager? I know of many programs that I would miss if I were to switch to Windows.

And Open Office may be open source, but it's still backed by a huge corporation that's plowing down a lot of money into its development. It wouldn't magically have become a better suite of programs had it not been open source.

Well, I have seen Linux fucked up far more times when its first installed then with Vista.


So have I. This doesn't change the fact that there are actually people expecting me to pay for the experience of fixing someone else's screw-ups. This isn't really about a specific piece of software (Linux), but rather about the economic model. In the commercial model, a company makes me pay for an inferior and defective product, and then makes me pay again (or jump through all sorts of other hoops) in order to fix their problem.

Not the case with F/OSS. I've run into all kinds of crappy F/OSS software. But if it doesn't install or otherwise work correctly, I delete it, move on, and my wallet isn't any thinner because of it. F/OSS people don't insult my intelligence by demanding that I pay twice: once for the piece of junk, and again for the fix.

F/OSS folks don't seem to be in the habit of monopolistic practices designed to corner markets for the purposes of forcing consumer "choice" in which OS comes installed on their new computer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tax#Licensing_agreements), either.


The vast majority of open source software is inferior to commercial software. I mean taking a few random examples: Gimp is much worse then photoshop, Open office is much worse then Word


One should not confuse personal opinion with objective fact. You are, of course, correct that lots of really bad F/OSS exists. Although surely one's assessment of the Gimp is exaggerated, and over the past several years I have made regular use of Open Office to construct all kinds of large documents which I port back and forth to Microsoft Word at school, on the Windows and MacOS X platforms, without a single problem.

But, again, the quality of the software isn't really what's relevant. What is relevant is how one commercial/economic model exploits its customers and the other liberates them.


To make money, produce businesses, provide jobs and improve the economy etc..


Please explain the rush of commercial business enterprise to adopt and support F/OSS software (like Linux). Indeed, that the commercial software enterprise is becoming increasingly dependent on F/OSS for support is actually fairly ironic and extremely amusing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption#Business
http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_002570DE00740E18002573B100020F62.html?ex=1355288400&en=1a1c847788830aeb&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss/ru/

A major financial backbone of your money, business, and economy now runs on Linux. :) Why? Independence, flexibility, and lower costs. Like myself, the NYSE apparently doesn't appreciate having to pay only to get screwed.

How about file managers? Which is the best? Or simple image viewer? Text editor? Video player? Music manager? IRC client? Panel? Window manager? I know of many programs that I would miss if I were to switch to Windows.


What the fuck? Nobody pays for this shit, there really aren't many commercial companies that actually sells this either. Most good open source programmes are multi platform anyway, what programmes would you miss? I never said that open source software is bad, I just said that in the majority of cases you can show that if there is a commercial alternative (which isn't blatantly just a scam looking for your money), it's going to be better. There are exceptions of course, AVG free is far better then Norton for instance.


And Open Office may be open source, but it's still backed by a huge corporation that's plowing down a lot of money into its development. It wouldn't magically have become a better suite of programs had it not been open source.

It may have been, since they would get a whole lot more money from its retail.

So have I. This doesn't change the fact that there are actually people expecting me to pay for the experience of fixing someone else's screw-ups. This isn't really about a specific piece of software (Linux), but rather about the economic model. In the commercial model, a company makes me pay for an inferior and defective product, and then makes me pay again (or jump through all sorts of other hoops) in order to fix their problem.


Well, I've never seen vista be slow on a good computer, without there being really obvious things you can fix. But even if Vista screws up loads, it doesn't make the OS itself worse. It just means that for some people it screws up.


Not the case with F/OSS. I've run into all kinds of crappy F/OSS software. But if it doesn't install or otherwise work correctly, I delete it, move on, and my wallet isn't any thinner because of it. F/OSS people don't insult my intelligence by demanding that I pay twice: once for the piece of junk, and again for the fix.


Microsofts crap treatment of customers is irellavent to how good its product actually is.


F/OSS folks don't seem to be in the habit of monopolistic practices designed to corner markets for the purposes of forcing consumer "choice" in which OS comes installed on their new computer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tax#Licensing_agreements), either.


Blame the companies that agreed with microsoft, since at the beginning microsoft were quite a humble companie looking for the deal of their life.


One should not confuse personal opinion with objective fact.

Irony.


You are, of course, correct that lots of really bad F/OSS exists. Although surely one's assessment of the Gimp is exaggerated

I have it and use it ('cause I can't afford photoshop, but I use that in school). I think I know enough about it to say that its worse then photoshop.


and over the past several years I have made regular use of Open Office to construct all kinds of large documents which I port back and forth to Microsoft Word at school, on the Windows and MacOS X platforms, without a single problem.


Same, since I wasn't able to afford Word either. Now that I have it though, my life is so much easier.


But, again, the quality of the software isn't really what's relevant.

It isn't? I thought this is what the whole conversation is about.


What is relevant is how one commercial/economic model exploits its customers and the other liberates them.


That's capitalism for you.


Please explain the rush of commercial business enterprise to adopt and support F/OSS software (like Linux). Indeed, that the commercial software enterprise is becoming increasingly dependent on F/OSS for support is actually fairly ironic and extremely amusing.


That's because Linux is far more stable than Microsoft, especially with large servers.


A major financial backbone of your money, business, and economy now runs on Linux. :) Why? Independence, flexibility, and lower costs. Like myself, the NYSE apparently doesn't appreciate having to pay only to get screwed.

I never disputed this. What I'm saying is, most of the time if you want a good piece of software, you're going to want to have a large group of expert employees who will work hard at it. You're going to need to pay them. If you want to pay them, you're going to have sell your products.

? it works exactly as any older version.

I think that's where the problem is in the first place

F/OSS folks don't seem to be in the habit of monopolistic practices designed to corner markets for the purposes of forcing consumer "choice" in which OS comes installed on their new computer, either. ... at the beginning microsoft were quite a humble companie looking for the deal of their life.:confused:

whatever that has to do with Vista being Bloated and slower than a Whale on sand ???

even if Microsoft -at the beginning- was created by baby Jesus and the immaculate Virgins.. I should NOT have to be forced to pay for their slow+bloated Vista on every computer at the local Computer store.

What the fuck? Nobody pays for this shit, there really aren't many commercial companies that actually sells this either. Most good open source programmes are multi platform anyway, what programmes would you miss? I never said that open source software is bad, I just said that in the majority of cases you can show that if there is a commercial alternative (which isn't blatantly just a scam looking for your money), it's going to be better. There are exceptions of course, AVG free is far better then Norton for instance.
So is WMP commercial? It's free, but you must use Windows to get it. Itunes? It's a tie-in for other commercial services. No one pays for IRC clients, huh? What about mIRC? And there's a huge market for text editors. Panel, window manager and file browsers are all part of Windows and OS X, which are commercial operating systems.

What I would miss? I would miss things in all categories I mentioned. I would miss the high quality and easy to use themes. Since I do some programming I would miss the benefits Linux has in that area. You know, Linux isn't just one product, it's the sum of thousands of different programs that all make up the OS, and a lot of it the average Windows user doesn't even know exist, and for which the vast majority DO NOT have a Windows port.

It may have been, since they would get a whole lot more money from its retail.

May I direct you to Sun's commercial office suite: http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/index.jsp
It's based on Open Office. Open Office started out as closed source, but was later open sourced and has seen a lot of improvement since then. You sure picked a poor example for your argument.