Windows 7: The Best Vista Service Pack Ever

blog
181

higher stability and performance than even XP (It’s true, go look it up!).

I’m typing this in a machine running 64-bit Vista. It’s running on a 3Ghz Core2 Duo with 2GB RAM and equivalent hardware for the rest of the system. After I hit the power switch, I can go downstairs, put some water on to boil, grab a cup and some milk, carry them upstairs, go down again to fetch the water (it’s a quick-boil kettle), take that upstairs, pour it in the cup with the teabag (yeah, I make tea wrong, so sue me), and then usually still have to wait a bit before the Vista desktop is ready (it’s so bad that I’ve gotten into the habit of hitting the power and then wandering off to do something else while it boots. The Vista PC’s at work are just as bad, it’s actually changed the way the tea-lovers have their tea break because now you go and make it while waiting for Vista to start up).

On an older 2Ghz P4 running XP I can locate and plug in my headphones, and not much more than that, after which the system is ready to use.

But obviously Vista is much faster, because someone has said it is on their blog, and that must be right.

182

So you still use Internet Explorer 6, I take it?

No, not personally, but I’m posting this from work where we are mandated to use IE 6. Why should you care? Because I’m one of 30k federal employees within this agency!

183

Thank you, SHamman. I wish more people would realize this. I use to be a real Windows basher until I woke up one day and realized that it has it’s uses, just like Linux, MacOS, BSD, etc.

184

What irks me as a Mac user (but a programmer nonetheless, hence me reading and following Jeff’s musings on his blog) is that for YEARS smug Microsoft Windows users have been labelling OS X releases as “paid service packs” and boasting that MS release service packs for their operating systems that fix bugs, add new programs and generally make things run smoother – for free – whereas OS X releases are just prettied up interfaces and have some things moved around (those who actually use OS X would know that differences in versions are much more deeper than frivolous GUI changes).

Now that Windows 7 is coming out (which I think is a great OS and a huge improvement over Vista), you guys all slap yourselves on the back and happily anticipate the handing over of hard-earned cash (and a lot of it IMO) for what basically Jeff has labelled a “service pack”.

Now me being one of the, if not the solitary, Mac user(s) that frequent this blog, I am prepared to have my arse flamed to hell and back, but could someone explain to me the reasoning or thought process in why there are double standards in this regard? It just seems to me that something that PC users portrayed as a deadly sin, is OK when Microsoft do something similar with their OS.

And no, the reasoning of “Mac OS X just sucks” won’t cut it for me.

185

@David W.:

I must agree with your statement, that no single company alone in the world can really build a successful OS, unless you are willing to make lots of compromises regarding quality. That’s why I love OS X so much. It has a rock solid BSD subsystem (which is all OpenSource BTW), it is one of the very little OSes that have reached full POSIX compliance - whether I think the microkernel is great or not… I’m not sure how meaningful a microkernel is that is embedded into a huge monolithic BSD kernel; either just have a microkernel or just have a monolithic one - the hybrid approach of Apple seems to have almost no benefits, but it has drawbacks (e.g. performance is worse than it could be). The default Obj-C API bases on NextStep (also not Apple!); so OS X is not just an operating system of a single company, Apple picked stable components form all places and merged them together into a single OS.

186

@ Jeff

“Can you imagine any other industry operating this way?”

Nuclear, Aerospatial, Manufacturing, Logistics, etc. All industries need reliable technology and unfortunately windows is not reliable. No one will ever use windows at factory level. Many Industrial apps are still text mode, and if windows is used is only to connect to a main server.

Examples: Emergency networks (police, ambulances, etc.) use HP-UX systems. Airbus and Boeing use linux for non navigation software (navigation soft is under regulations and win, lin, osx does not fit regulations). PLC are used in 99.9% to control factory plants. Even nuclear plants still have analog computers.

All of us, programmers, computer addicts, techies… we live in a cloud that is far far far, far away from reality. Many people is still programming in assembler for many industrial appliances.

So, the only industry concerned about windows versions, windows versus linux versus osx, kde versus gnome, etc. are us, the ‘real’ software industry. I mean, software that do not need to interact with any hardware. I mean, hardware lime machines, robots, CNC, not computer hardware. :smiley:

Sorry for my bad English.

Jaume.

187

I’ve been visiting this site for many years, and this was the most wrongheaded nonsense I’ve ever read.

I stayed on Win95 until I HAD to upgrade, then went to 98. Then I went to XP around SP1. Vista offers ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. In fact I’ve bought three computers that came with Vista. I immediately wiped the hard drive and installed XP.

I need better hardware just to run it at a comparable level with my XP install. I mean really it’s a case of “It’s like XP but requires more expense and less software will run on it.”

I find it insane that people seem to be PRAISING the fact it takes so many gigabytes of space. “Oh I don’t care, I have 1 terabyte of space.” What sort of ludicrous mentality is that. “Hey, this new car I bought has FIVE seats. I must immediately fill one with boxes so I can’t use it!”

Compare this with Snow Leopard where one of Apple’s marketing points is the fact it takes LESS HD space than Leopard.

This attitude that you MUST upgrade, and anyone who supports it, can stick it. I’m a gamer. A fair few games don’t even SUPPORT Vista. Now you can say “Well that’s not MS’ fault”, which is a fair point. But perhaps if they hadn’t foisted an incomplete abortion of an OS onto the world we wouldn’t have these issues. Anyone could see Vista was going to be a disaster when MS kept dropping features from it.

Regardless of the reasons, there is software that won’t run on Vista. Go look at your local game store and you’ll see small print saying it’s not guaranteed to work on Vista. Windows, the PRIMARY OS OF THE MAJORITY OF THE PLANET, and THE computer gaming OS, and there’s titles being released that don’t work on it. THAT right there should tell you all you need to know about Vista. It is GAMING that has driven the hardware revolution. Do you think we’d have such amazing graphics cards out there if it wasn’t for gamers? No, we wouldn’t.

When an OS, on a system whose development is driven by gaming, isn’t support by developers of said software, that’s a far bigger condemnation of the OS manufacturer than the game maker.

Basically anyone who uses Vista has paid to be a beta testers for MS and now the release candidate is coming and you’re expected to pay again. You promote MS, all I can say is PT Barnum would have loved you.

I’m using a Mac lately. Windows has been reduced to essentially a Gameboy with a web browser. I run Boot Camp on my Macbook just for games. I’ll be sticking with XP. Eventually I know I’ll be forced to upgrade to carry on. That’s not going to happen for AT LEAST 3 years as game companies will NOT want to exclude chunks of the market. Meaning my beloved XP that JUST WORKS will be around for a while yet. And when I reach the point where I HAVE to upgrade, then I guess I’m done gaming on the PC.

People crow on about “stability” etc… And how much BETTER Vista and W7 are, and yet I’m sitting here unable to remember the last time XP crashed on me.

I always felt Jeff was a tool for a variety of reasons, but this article has finally been the light at the end of the tunnel. You are a tool Jeff. You are either in the pay of Microsoft, which makes you a whore. Or you’re evangelizing for free when MS should be paying you for such glowing commendations, which makes you an idiot.

People could spend MONTHS dissecting this articles many lies, falsehoods and flat out insane declarations. The fact Jeff seems to be worshipped in certain corners is rather disturbing. It’s like computings answer to Scientology.

188

@George:

Now me being one of the, if not the solitary, Mac user(s) that frequent this blog,

Not at all. I’m another one. But I program under Windows (Vista/XP/7 now) using Visual Studio 2008.
Since the 1st Intel Mac, I rarely touch windows outside a Virtual Machine, except when testing TabletPC Hardware or our own sofware on real machines.

Yet I still read Jeff’s blog. Sometimes he goes nuts, but sometimes he writes nice stuff (even if 50% of the articles tend to be huge pictures and big quotes from books).

:wink:

189

@Dinesh Gajjar

I’m one of those persons that really believe that each task got its own tool that rightly fit with the job.

As I said, I’m a happy windows corporate admin. Because I can tightly control my users behaviour with group policies, because a decent computer with windows is cheap to buy so my company have always decent computers. We in fact got a what I think is a good hardware policy: every year we replace a third of all our workstation (let them be desktop or laptop). So none of our hardware is more than 3 years old, and the cost is even every year (not true, every year the cost is diminishing). So this policy is easy to sell to our CFO.
But, I have to disagree with Jeff. You see, what is computing except a tool for the enterprise? But what is really the tool of the enterprise? The software. The software is what makes the business run every day. The software needs an os to run, which in turn needs a hardware. Software performance is in the real world more directly affected by a faster hardware than a faster os (given that windows, or OS X, or *nix are pretty mature and hence don’t have core major performance issue).

Well no software crucial to the windows business world needs anything more recent than XP SP2. So XP SP2 is still a pretty decent tool or the job. Then you have to consider the micro computing world: micro computing is about compromise: it’s not the best computing solution, it’s the one enough decent with a price tag you can afford. Ethernet, wifi, pentiums, all those technologies were and are not the best you can achieve, their the best you can afford, or, to put it another way: they are the best commercial achievements, not the best technological achievements. And that’s what is windows: the best commercial achievement, and the best value vs technology you can buy. In this point of view, vista is less interesting than XP.

Where does 7 stand?

190

sorry for the bad english, it is not my language, I tend to write what phonetically think in english.

191

Windows ME, Windows Vista…

maybe windows should stop naming their OS ? :slight_smile:

I think my bad experience with Vista came with a pre-installed HP laptop, was just terrible. Have not used Vista since. I know you should reinstall yourself, but no OS should be as bad as that.

Windows7 on the other hand, hands down the best OS by microsoft.

Still ALOT that could be better…

192

Dammit, I like my Windows XP. Good gaming platform, doesn’t force me to buy new hardware. And paid for.

NR

P.S. What happened to ‘Orange’?

193

“A world where people regularly use 9 year old operating systems is not a healthy computing ecosystem”

Why? You can’t just state something so counter-intuitive as though it’s a fundamental axiom.

194

I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 RC and it fucked my PC in 14 different ways.

7 is zippy, and pretty, and a better user experience, no doubt–but I won’t be installing it again anytime soon.

195

“Vista a good OS and I don’t understand why it should target for 400MHz CPU if you could not buy one even 5 years ago.”

Well then I see no reason to upgrade to Vista or Windows 7.
(what, you want me to just throw away a computer that still works for the opportunity to spend thousands of dollars for something that in all probability runs slower, and takes longer to boot?)

196

So, Microsoft is finally at 2004?

197

I had Vista come pre-installed on two different Dell machines I had bought, one when Vista was fairly new, another several months later.

No problems with either.

HP laptop, no problems there.

Built a machine from scratch (intel mobo, ati video card – standard stuff) – no worries.

Even worked with my networked Brother printer just fine.

Maybe some of ya’ll should stop buying shitty computers.

Especially those who are still experiencing problems on Windows 7.

Hey, I know, maybe you just can’t handle regular Legos and should stick with Duplo blocks (Mac) instead.

198

I read several people claiming OSX is true competition and it doesn’t have Driver problems etc.

But people do you know Apple is the only company that manufactures whole hardware as well as the software for Macs ? They can’t be a true competition. By definition they are evil. They want to control everything, they are worst then Microsoft.

Those that are happy with Macs, why do you care to read and comment on this post? Windows 7 is going to hitback at growing Mac market. Only people who would love to use Macs are those who don’t have too much work on PC or the designers.

199

@Dave:

But obviously Vista is much faster, because someone has said it is on their blog, and that must be right.

nothing wrong with making tea that way boyo, as long as it’s hot who cares?

But my experience is the polar opposite of yours - with more or less the same spec - I’ve had my machine for a year now, with tons of crap installed on it including SQL Server 2005 - and it still boots to the desktop in about 30 seconds, ready to go.

200

“I’m much more interested in the cool stuff you’re creating than what OS you use to create it with.”

That’s a strange thing to say in a post about what you consider a minor update to Vista.