Bill Gates unveils Vista editions, impersonates teapot.

ZylonBane on 28/2/2006 at 14:26

Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man

Nothing to do with chunky fingers... I have ten pencils stuck to my hands, they're so long and thin. And I've never yet met a shell replacement that I could stand.

Eh, PowerDesk isn't a shell replacement, it's just a "Windows Explorer" replacement.

SubJeff on 28/2/2006 at 15:11

Quote Posted by Para?noid

A decent operating system should provide a low-resource, fast and well designed GUI with the option to expand it and pretty it up through a set of themes, skins and addons.

This doesn't sell though, for shame. Every new Win install of mine has require much removal of unwanted components. I clear every. single. unwanted thing I can find. But even then there are things which persist. I'm tempted by Linux just for some difference (though I don't really know about anything about it's flexibility).

Also - must be checking this out then ZB.

ignatios on 28/2/2006 at 15:27

I'd be really surprised if Vista didn't let you turn all the fancy shit off.

SubJeff on 28/2/2006 at 16:03

Off? Yes, I'm sure. But removed, as in uninstalled, gone, taking up no space and not interfering with anything else? And how easy will it be to have a stripped down version? You may be able to do it but I don't want to have to go through hassle.

ZylonBane on 28/2/2006 at 16:12

I've read a little bit on Vista, and apparently there will be a fallback GUI for systems that don't have the grunt to render the new GUI. It won't just be the new GUI system running a "classic" skin (like the godawful classic skin in Windows Media Player).

Aerothorn on 1/3/2006 at 01:41

Quote Posted by Dia

Resistance will be futile. Why can't somebody just shoot Gates & be done with it?

You could do that, but considering that he doesn't actually run Microsoft I'm not sure that would really help that much - then Ballmer would just have even more power till they got a new chairman of the board. whoppee.

Somnus on 1/3/2006 at 06:00

The OS hasn't even been released and people are already bashing it. Look at all the huffy Linux users on the BBC touting their supposedly brilliant bundle of software on the public commentary section.

I'm looking forward to Vista's release, if only to see what it's like, how much better it's gotten if at all, and what's changed. I'm curious as always, and to be honest, I have a good feeling about it. I imagine, though, that there will be many problems from a realistic standpoint; it would be foolish to be romantically optmistic about a new operating system at this point, but then, it would be equally foolish to be prejudicially pessimistic, as well. There's never a reason to be close-minded.

zombe on 1/3/2006 at 07:24

Quote Posted by Renzatic

OSX has been doing the 3D accelerated UI thing for awhile now.

Jep. Still not as fancy as novell ((http://www.freedesktop.org/~davidr/xgl-demo1.xvid.avi)).

Most of it is quite useless tho (still a lot more usefull than what coming win has to offer - as far as i know).

David on 1/3/2006 at 18:11

Okie Dokey, so what do we have in Vista that isn't DRM or a flashy interface?

The kernel has been rewritten
No longer do users have administrator priviledges as they did with Windows XP - albeit mainly because that was the default. Instead users run much like Linux and OSX where you are asked to provide admin login details if they are needed. This will, hopefully, lead to less viruses and trojans, which often rely on system-wide access to reek their own brand of havoc.

This kernel rewrite also means that the majority of drivers will not run in kernel mode as they do now, and run in user mode. This means that, for the most part, installing and updating drivers will not require a reboot. Additionally if a driver crashes it won't take down your system.

IPV6 is now at the core of the networking part of Vista, rather than being hacked on in XP. That's not much use to people at the moment, but it should be in a couple of years. There is also a graphical view of your network, with problem areas highlighted, which might be pretty swish.
The Built in firewall is now a fully-fledged two way firewall, rather than one way, as it is in XP.

Media Centre is built into Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Vista. Windows Media Centre was pretty cool.

DirectX 10 does not work as per previous DirectXs. Currently you don't have to support all the DirectX 9 features to be classified a DirectX 9 card. Not any more! You want to be a DX10 card? Then you damn-well support the features! Also DX10 will not include prior DX versions. Instead it will sit alongside DX9.

Will the new features work as advertised? Will the DRM wreck it all? Who knows! But there is more to Vista than the flashy graphics and DRM.

Uncia on 1/3/2006 at 18:15

I'm told the security system in Vista is a bit whacko right now, and warns you about possible risks every single time you run an application to the point when you're basically clicking OK on any popup just to get on with it.
Also, crappy XP driver support, but that's to be expected of an early version.