I replied short because there were many things to reply to, but anyway I think you caught my idea.

Of course some housekeeping must be done, but I disagree that the computer (CPU, RAM, HDD) has to work all the time (as said, to make my money's worth). Also, I think I was clear on my opinon on prefetching.

To give another example, I don't use indexing service(s) because my stuff is organized. When I need to search, 99% of the time it is in one folder with less then 100 items. Very rare, I search in 3-4 folders at once. And for that 0,01% when I do a full all-drive search, I just start it and get over with it when it's done, which never takes too long. But If I happen to see my hard drives grind all the time while the computer is idle (or half of the time, or quarter of the time), I would be very annoyed.

But that's just me. Anyway, I think that indexing is extremely wasteful even for the average user (if such a thing exists). The disorganized one. Not knowing (or wanting to know) basic characteristics of file types or the filesystem.

Why don't you turn it off, you say? Well I can and I do, but that's what my complaint about Vista (insert: every new generation of Windows) is about - less and less things are controlable. Maybe Indexing Service is switchable today, but won't be tomorrow.

And a semi-example: in a fresh Vista install, at friend's, I saw around 10 scheduled tasks. (semi-example because I don't remember them exactly.) IMHO at least 7 of them were completely unnecessary. Bureaucratic stuff.

Idle time can be put to good use in many ways (cancer research/distributed computing etc.) but this and similar (in my opinion unnecessary) tasks are imposed onto 99 % of the users that don't (care to/need to/are afraid to) tweak.

GL

Hmm, no. It's a godsend for a lot of people. Back in 1995, when all your docs could be kept neatly organized in a few folders, this wasn't required at all for sure.

But now with 100's of different file types for different stuff, in hundreds of folders, often across several hard drives and all that, finding something isn't so trivial anymore. If I'm looking for a that PDF file that contains certain words, and that I have gigabytes of them, I'd be searching for entire days. Whereas now it finds it in mere seconds. It could also search my email for the said words and such places too. Hell, it'll even use the index on a remote (networked) computer to search on it (that's always been a problematic one). So I think it's very useful, even more so for the "average", disorganized user.

BTW, indexing has been in Windows for a LOT of years, and has always been configurable (and still is).

I must have failed to explain the use of idel time correctly - the OS does not use all idle time to achieve its goals - in fact very little proportionally, plus if the system is given something else to do (user-initiated or based on a schedule) then prefetching and indexing have much lower process and I/O priorities so they get suspended again until the system has been idle for some time.
There isn't an endless amount of work to be done when idle, and systems spend a huge percentage of their time idle (servers and workstations alike) - there is plenty of proof for this given the number of dumps observed which record the "true" idle time statistics.

Don't think of the OS using idle time in terms of SETI or Folding @ Home projects - those are designed to use all idle CPU cycles.
It would make the concepts of SpeedStep and ACPI redundant!

Okay, so your file system was designed in an organized fashion - you're most likely in the minority of users worldwide - but you're also missing the point of the Windows Search service in Vista being designed around iFilters - so content of any type can be indexed, not just files.

So the Office team produced iFilters for their products, and now you can search inside emails held in Outlook with the same interface - 3rd parties can produce iFilters for their proprietary file formats to leverage the power of the functionality provided by the OS, instead of having to write their own engine.
Files can be tagged with metadata for use in searching, so you can locate images and videos through Search too - so for those times when a photo falls in multiple categories and your file system rigidly makes you put it into one folder, or have multiple copies of the same photo.

So I would disagree that the indexing service is a waste for most users - quite the opposite.

How do you know they were unnecessary, and did you look at the actual schedule to see how often they would run?

I agree it's an advantage to have a collection of drivers on hand and ready for a quick install. However I disagree that drivers on CDs are worse or older. They can't be older than the hardware itself. And if the hardware is newer than the driver coming with Vista then it's not older.
But ok, if that doesn't slow down the system, doesn't make a virus check 10x longer, is not recopied endlessly at each system back-up, and can be deleted if I want to for some reason, then: why not? But that remains to be verified.

Had I to install Vista, I would prefer to have the option not to install all the "bloat" (pick another word for that if you want), and have everything copied on my HDD in a few minutes. Of course when Vista is not pre-installed.


Indexing shouldn't be a "by default" running service. Period. Many poeple don't need it. Some may need it more often but again, when you have some discipline and can sort and name your files correctly you rarely need to search anything.
That being said, it's not useless, but indexation shouldn't be a permanent process. It can be done manualy or suggested when the user use "search" very often.

It can be very useful when having thousands of files, like a database or something.

The problem is more that Windows decided what's best for me, without knowing my personal habits. That configuring it is not obvious and very limited. When I tried to "configure" the indexation service, I was appalled by the few options I had, none of them relevant to what I hoped to do.

The other problem with "searching an index" versus "searching in a directory tree" is that it too often either doesn't find anything or finds too many things.



The problem is that you don't configure, personalize and optimize your whole computer by right-clicking on the taskbar.
It would be nice to have one tabbed interface from which we could manage all the existing settings instead of having them scattered among multiple "cannot be easier" locations. Actualy everytime I want to change a setting, it's a guess game against Windows, starting by right-clicks here and there, reading all the stuffs in the control panel, pressing "configure" where it doesn't configure anything serious etc.

Crahak

I think there is a very big difference between the Dos-to-Windows transition era and today,
When Windows 3.1 came out computers most poeple had were clearly not up to the task. Processors were ridiculously slow and hard drive were something new. Some computers still relied on floppy for all storage available! Not even talking about memory which was, what, 4 Mb?
But the concept was there and the program was there for those wh wanted to try. Fortunately, computer performances improved very quickely and a few years later were able to run windows95 which was THE real revolution in personal computing.

Now turn off Vista eye-candy, switch to the old ugly gryish "classic" theme, move the screen resolution slider to 640x480 and you have the same thing, visualy as windows 95. So why in absence of network or other special things, Vista cannot run on a w95 computer? See where I'm going to?

It's not like in six months all the computers will have doubled their speed or like a 3d effect is going to revolutionize the way we share and process informations.

There is also a big difference albeit not as big, with the w98-to-Xp era and today. For the same reason: computer hardwares don't evoluate as fast as before.
5 years ago, you could buy the fastest processor on the shelve, one moth later a friend of you would show up boasting an even faster one.
Today we rely on dual core and we hold our breath on the quad core promises.

Now let's say Xp needs 512 Mb (of memory) to run smoothly (not the minimum requirement but where we are confortable), and w98 128 Mb. That's 384 Mb more.
To be logic Vista sholdn't use more than 384 Mb more than Xp, which is 896 Mb, let's say 1 Gb. That's almost that, except that it's the minimum requirement instead of the confort zone.
What I mean is that requirement can't increase exponentialy forever. One day you have to stop and stay were we are.

Looking at what 10 years old boxes were already capable of and how close 5 years old ones are to nowadays computers, it's hard to understand why a new version of windows still need x times more resource to even boot....
I mean 2, 3 or 5 years old computers are not "clearly not up to the task" of running windows Vista. Hence the bad impression.

Drivers on CDs are pressed in LARGE batches when the hardware comes out (it's more economical to get lots done at once). Then they ship those for a LONG time. And then they sit in different warehouses and such for a long time. And then on store shelves, etc. By the time you buy the hardware, the drivers on CDs are quite old. Also, lots of such CDs like to install a LOT of garbage (like an outdated acrobat reader 5, and more junk like quicktime), and that's when your hardware is brand new. Fast forward 2 or 3 years and reinstall Windows -- those drivers on CD are probably 5 years old at that point (beyond outdated). In Vista's case too, the drivers can't be older than the hardware... Unless MS has a time travel machine.


If he hardware is newer than Vista, then Vista doesn't come with the driver (again, no time travel). And if it's older and Vista has it, then most likely Vista's driver is newer.


It doesn't get executed or anything, so it doesn't slow down the system. Only abut half of that is even binaries, so it only adds 200MB or so to a virus check (which is really nothing considering I have 10's of GBs of stuff to scan in the first place -- not that I even run an AV mind you; but nod32 would scan that 200MB in mere miliseconds). Backups? It totally depends on your backup app of course (and unless it sucks, you could tell it not to backup those if you wanted; and it would make no difference on differential/incremental backups either). Can be deleted? I don't see why not...

As for indexing, it's a matter of opinion. There's millions of downloads of such apps (like Google Desktop search and dozens of others) so obviously there is a demand, and every other OS also does this (e.g. OS X's Finder). It's no more work to disable it (opt-out) if you don't want it then it would be to enable it if you want it (opt-in). Whether it should be enabled or disabled by default is really a personal preference. Either opinion is valid, and it doesn't matter which one they chose, some people won't agree in either case.


Like I said before, it wasn't limited to 3.1 at all...


That's a matter of opinion (and I don't agree at all with that statement personally). It had a new GUI (including a start menu), and some stuff installed by default (like a network stack), but other than that... It also ran like crap on most systems out at the time (486'es). It ran "just OK" on my brand new $3000 P1 at the time (OS/2 ran circles around it)


I disagree on everything again. XP and 98 don't even compare. They're worlds apart, in design, function and everything. Also, the speed at which hardware improves hasn't slowed down at all. We now have dirt cheap dual cores (my $70 E2160 benches 3x faster than the old P4 3GHz I just got rid of), we got quad cores under $200, PCI-e 2.0, USB3, super fast DDR3, always-faster video cards, Nehalem is just around the corner, SSDs are starting to become a reality, etc.


Hasn't changed one bit. Go buy a Q9650, next month they'll have the new Bloomfield core-based CPUs, then die shrinks, Nehalem, etc. If anything, new processors are coming out faster than ever, and there's no signs of it slowing down.


No, that's rather 4x as much RAM (besides comparing 98 to XP is much of an apples to oranges comparison). It still isn't an issue at all, as long as you can get at least 4x as much RAM for the same price.

The way I see it, yes XP is great but we all gotta move on. This isn't to say that I am going to abandon XP, heck I still run a Windows 98 box at home. But the fact that SP1 has made Vista livable is a great sign. To tell you the truth, I haven't even used SP3 on XP and probably won't. There isn't enough demand for it, and personally I don't see a reason to get it.

I feel quite the opposite. One big reason is stability - hundreds of hotfixes between SP2 and SP3. There are very few new things (most notably the networking services) introduced and I can live with them because:

1. I understand they are needed for Vista connectivity
2. (In theory) In the meantime, Microsoft has learned new ways of doing things, so let's give them a chance.
3. No (massive) errors reported with them so far.
4. They can be nLited away (not all of them currently, but I hope that will be improved).

So XP SP3 is a winner in my book.

GL

Crahak,
I don't think M$ rewrites these thousands of drivers. Except for the native windows drivers, I'm sure that they are all collected from the manufacturers. I even doubt that they looked for updated ones when they compiled the Vista's driver collection.

Yes, the drivers are provided by the manufactuers prior to RTM, and these are tested thoroughly to work properly. After that, driver updates provided from Microsoft are pushed down from Windows Update, but these are also provided by the vendor. Microsoft only provides Microsoft drivers for Microsoft-branded hardware and for generic print drivers (like generic/text).

I've been using Windows Vista Ultimate since it's corporate launch and how much I like certain new features, I'm going to reinstall Windows XP Professional in the nearby future. I have good contacts with Microsoft. There are still several bugs in Windows Vista which annoy me and which Microsoft have admitted that they are indeed bugs, but which have not been solved with SP1. Certain software is not compatible with Windows Vista and although this is not a problem with Windows Vista, but actually with the software vendors, it also makes me want to get rid off Windows Vista. The latest problem in a new update, which resulted in my mouse behaving silly at times when selecting text for example. Again Microsoft have admitted the bug, but when it will be fixed, no one can tell me. Windows Vista also does too much thinking for me. When I want to create a new folder for example in the Start Menu, when I want to copy files into the Program Files folder, et cetera. Windows Vista annoys me, but I'll have to deal with it until I have moved houses, since I don't have time to get rid off it at the moment. Windows XP all the way for now and waiting impatiently for the follow up to Windows Vista, codenamed Windows 7.

After putting together a new rig i made the move to vista ultimate 64 bit. been using it for two months now with only occasional compatability problems. but then again to be fair i use xplorer2, aston shell and opera. same as windows me the os that came in my first pc........

I'll never go back to XP - Vista is more secure, more dependable, and easier to fix than XP. On the down side, I can't use my Hauppage PVR-250 with it - so I had to plug the TV cable directly into my monitor. Any other hardware/software - I just bit the bullet and upgraded it as needed.

They have Vista drivers, just not Vista x64 drivers... Can't say Hauppauge's support is that great though (most recent driver seems to be 3 years old!)

Little things like this are why I don't use x64 *yet*. I'll probably make the switch sometime after the holidays though (I'll likely upgrade RAM to 8GB around then).

Yeah, Vista's Explorer realy sucks. I can't stand it more than 20 seconds. That's maybe the worse part of Vista.
But Explorer in older versions of windows were not much better.

When you install an alternative and far better file manager (as well as other apps such as another web browser, another calculator, another Notepad etc), you realize that an OS is not just Windows Explorer. Something that too many poeple mix up. They complain about stuffs in Explorer while they just ought to change it.

That's why I'm the advocate of Modular Windows, where exprimented users (those who have already used a computer) can instal just what they want, benefiting from the new technologies (the invisible ones) and install the external apps of they are familiar with, partialy avoiding the eternal learning curve. The choice of alternative application, unlike OSes, is larger everyday.

Here's an example. If I have misunderstood you then I apologize.

Here's 2 versions of the same code. The 1st one is small.


2nd version, although bigger, executes quicker.



The strlen example may not seem like a big deal to most, and it may well not be, but when dealing with lots of data, as most programs do, then the small version becomes a bottleneck. The second version operates quicker. I also have an SSE2 example that's even faster than the 2nd.

A lot of the userland functions in Windows are compiled C/C++ code that doesn't translate to very well optimized code. The compiler in most cases produces some nasty code and there are very few specific optimizations in the WIN32 API. I know this isn't 20 years ago and the meticulous optimization practices that were onced used don't need to be used on every single piece of code. But for those routines that are executed over and over, some form of manual optimization needs to be done. Just because CPUs are in the Ghz range doesn't mean code can't be a bottleneck.

It would be nice if MSFT would take Windows and just do a major optimization and tweaking to the underlying code. I'd rather have a fast more stable version than one with yet more "features" and greater inefficency.


+1

But Windows is expensive to produce (man hours == $), so who pays for it? I have heard quite a few here say Windows is too expensive already - so who pays for the optimization?

/totally a devil's advocate post/

AFAIK modular Windows has been discussed in depth at Microsoft (from a few conversations I've had there). And, again AFAIK, it's just not feasible to turn Windows into this without a lot of work.

Windows is sort of a one-size-fits-all OS. It tries to do everything for everyone. They also use versioning (Home Basic, Home Premium, etc) to pitch optimized packages at different types of users. But this is a marketing thing, not an OS essential thing.

So, for most people, it does what's needed. Those of us who are more technically oriented (who, by the way, are in the minority of Windows users) are just trying to get a one-size-fits-all OS to meet our needs. Unfortunately, the compromises that are necessary to fit the OS to all users will inevitably leave some of us feeling unsatisfied with what's there. If we get fed up enough, we move elsewhere.

In the end, the consumer pays for it (and not just the average user - but the big businesses also). If they don't pay for it, then Microsoft will have to go out of business. We vote with our wallets.

That's what it really comes down to. Yes, everything could be hand-optimized asm. But the development costs would spike incredibly.

Nowadays, all developers are dead-set against premature optimization (profile, then optimize the parts that actually need it).


The second version is also a lot more complex than not only the first, but MUCH more than the C or C++ version. You'd need to hire a LOT of asm gurus to optimize everything like that too, and that doesn't come for free (like cluberti said). Plus, higher LoC count usually means more bugs, hence higher maintenance costs and all that. And there is far more to it than just that! You'd have your i386-hand optimized version, then your other code paths for different processor capabilities (e.g. your SSE2 version of that) plus processor feature detection and such all over the place, so now you're maintaining like 6 different code paths, which are each 50x longer than the original (so like 300x more code), which took a LOT longer to write, likely contains more bugs, and takes more time to maintain, etc. The project very quickly becomes a even bigger monster, which makes it that much more difficult to manage.

Mind you, I'm all for optimizing stuff that actually needs it/benefits from it, up to a reasonable point (things like video codecs, and those already are).

Optimization is always a trade off. The more you do, the more your product will cost (and people REALLY don't want that), and the less you do, the more hardware it'll require (users don' really want that either). It's a matter of hitting the sweet spot. If it runs on commodity hardware, then there's little point in spending millions of $ to optimize it further, but if it requires VERY expensive computers to run, then nobody would buy it, so then they spend the $ there...

And while optimization is nice, most people wouldn't upgrade if it wasn't for the new features and eye candy. "Now with 5% faster DLLs!" won't sell a new $200 OS. They got a LOT of shortcomings to address (I think I made a pretty good list there) -- some points being WAY overdue, and personally I'd like to see them work on that first, as long as it keeps running on commodity hardware.

One person's shortcoming list is another person's not important list . Anyway, I liked your list and wanted to touch on it (forgot that thread existed after awhile ):

[*]virtual desktops/workspaces/viewports or whatever you wanna call those things
- I'm pretty sure the Windows desktop is gonna stay one per user, just because of the userbase. The kinds of users who would use/understand this and not get confused is pretty small.

[*]make aero more like compiz fusion (pretty much all of the features)
- Hard to say how Aero will go, long term, but it probably isn't gonna change much if at all anytime soon. Once there's a desktop "feel" people get used to, it takes a long time to change (hey, 6 years from 95 to XP's "lego", and 6 years from XP to Vista's "Aero". Expect maybe another 6 years?

[*]a built-in SSH server (yeah, I do know about PowerShell remoting) and a client too
- Microsoft uses telnet for some reason over SSH, and I would love to see security get into the OS here, as it could be well used. The OpenSSH implementation is a BSD licensed product, so it could be done. I guess we'll have to see if Microsoft will replace telnet with OpenSSH.

[*]utils like process explorer, process monitor and autoruns should be part of the OS/default install
- Give it time, I'm guessing this will happen. Although keeping them updated as Russinovich updates them might be a problem, it is still a good goal.

[*]make the zip file handling not suck (and handle more than .zip, that thing is useless; just add .7z support, and no one would use zip anymore in a couple years)
[*]make the CD burning not suck (a real burning app for a change, like nero)
[*]also add a CD image app that does iso read/write, and editing them too (like imgburn + ultraiso)
- *cough*antitrust*cough*. Microsoft has to be VERY careful what they do, and do not, include. If they step on ANY public vendor products (like Roxio, Nero, et al) they tread on very thin ice. Especially with Nero being housed in an EU country, I think they err on the side of non-inclusion when there's any chance of another huge lawsuit.

[*]a decent ftp client (and server for the server OS, IIS is great and all... but not as a FTP server), sftp/scp would be real nice too
Indeed, although killing FTP over SFTP/SCP would be great...

[*]a nice rss feed reader like FeedDemon (perhaps with podcast support)
- Win7 currently has a much nicer RSS app, so you might get your wish here.

[*]a good downloader manager app
- Actually, given the design of IE, this might actually be *necessary*. This may actually show up (the MSDN downloader used for connect, licensing sites, etc is actually quite good and fast).

[*]similarly, leave mspaint alone, but add a not completely useless app i.e. with more features (perhaps like an older paint shop pro)
- I think this falls under the Expression products umbrella, so doubt it makes it into the OS anytime soon.

[*]music/video players worth using (like MPC & winamp, none of this WMP garbage)
- One man's garbage is another man's just fine app, so to speak (actually, MCE - but it runs on top of WMP, so...).

[*]make MCE not suck so badly (it could hardly be worse)
- Again, your wish might be granted. MCE gets an upgrade (well, so far).

[*]a better disk defragmenter
- I find the Vista defrag just fine for the majority of users, including myself.

[*]maybe some admin/power user-only tools (like regsnap & what not -- and why not a ramdisk? and a hex editor? a MSI repackaging/authoring tool?)
- Microsoft doesn't support repackaging MSIs (only straight builds with an editor like Orca or 3rd party), so that'll never happen. Ramdisk might, although SSHDs might have a better shot (and be cheaper) and they won't lose data on shutdown (well, if the battery is working, anyway ).

[*]add even more command line utils (wget/sed/awg/grep/...-like apps, imagex & such, etc)
- Gotta wait for powershell to become more mature, I'm expecting these to come as powershell gets older.

[*]include the latest versions of all your runtimes & frameworks & such stuff (like silverlight)
- Nigh impossible with the way things change (like silverlight and .net). I think the best you'll get is a snapshot in time and then you'll have to do like you currently do, download updates or let WU deliver them.

[*]make their mail app not suck (be it named outlook express or otherwise)
- I doubt that MS will kill Outlook. Ever.

[*]more "basic" apps, like perhaps a html editor (or blog "editor" these days...)
- Maybe, although again, these fall under the Expression studio products, so it's doubtful these will make the OS anytime soon.

[*]more config options on most things (options for the screensavers would be a start)
- Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how usability testing goes - if it seems "too hard" for the test users, it'll get hidden or removed or changed, whatever.

[*]a system-wide dictionary that would work in all apps (much like firefox's built-in one)
- With the amount of languages supported, this is currently not financially or code-wise feasible.

[*]something good to sync files (rsync-ish, with a front end?)
- Live Mesh, it's coming. It's a live product, but it (shock) actually *works*.

[*]keep improving the firewall (not that I use one, but there shouldn't be a need for 3rd party tools for this)
- Win7's firewall is pretty darn good.

[*]some kind of universal/unified update mechanism for all your apps would rock for sure
- This might happen in time, but not soon. All kinds of legal issues.

[*]a web browser that doesn't suck this badly (I've long given up even wishing for this one actually)
- Again, one man's trash... IE8 B2 is fantastic, at least as good as FF3 (personally I find it better, but I'm slightly biased - however, being a web dev, it really is at least as good as FF3).

[*]more filesystems supported
- Nope. NTFS or whatever they replace it with in the future, but that'll be it. Choice isn't good for large-scale deployments or large customers, and that's where the bread is buttered (although having WinFS will be nice, eventually). Again, it's nice to think about, but if the majority won't or can't use it, it isn't going to happen. Besides, what really are the benefits for the average Windows user (not you or I, but the *average* user)?

[*]a good font manager (long overdue)
- Hard to say if this will happen, but probably not. Adobe's got this locked up, and it'll be hard to compete and not see the inside of a courtroom.

[*]I'm pretty sure the Windows desktop is gonna stay one per user, just because of the userbase. The kinds of users who would use/understand this and not get confused is pretty small.
It saddens me to hear this. It's so nice having different "desktops" for different purposes when you're a heavy multitasker... Office apps on one, video encoding apps on another, programming tools on the 3rd, web browser and winamp and such on the next, etc. All your open apps separated by purpose. I'd pay good money for that feature alone, but there isn't a product out there for windows that works (virtuawin and such apps are buggy as hell/not worth using unfortunately)

[*]Hard to say how Aero will go, long term, but it probably isn't gonna change much if at all anytime soon.
You know you just ruined my weekend by saying this? (j/k) Seriously, there should be other/better task "switchers" than flip3d (meh), and things like the zoom plugin, and the expose-like plugin are VERY good to have, lot of other stuff that's quite nice, but not essential (like window grouping). Compiz makes Linux a FAR better desktop than Windows IMO, but it's just too bad Linux won't run 95% of my apps nor have a suitable replacement for them, and doesn't agree with my hardware selection either...

[*]Microsoft uses telnet for some reason over SSH, and I would love to see security get into the OS here, as it could be well used. The OpenSSH implementation is a BSD licensed product, so it could be done. I guess we'll have to see if Microsoft will replace telnet with OpenSSH.
Yeah, they don't give us much choices. Plain old telnet server (unencryped), or powershell remoting (which isn't quite the same either) -- or use a much higher bandwidth method, like TS just for a command prompt. Not a very big deal though, as CopSSH works nice, it just sucks having to install it instead of being built-in.

[*]Give it time, I'm guessing this will happen. Although keeping them updated as Russinovich updates them might be a problem, it is still a good goal.
I'd still be VERY happy with that. Even if it's not installed by default (perhaps make it an optional component, added in "programs and features"), and they could deliver updated builds via Windows Update for those who have it installed.

[*]*cough*antitrust*cough*. Microsoft has to be VERY careful what they do, and do not, include. If they step on ANY public vendor products (like Roxio, Nero, et al) they tread on very thin ice.
Yes, you're totally right on this one! It's amazing no one's sued them for including notepad or calc.exe yet... I hope I'm not giving anyone ideas here!

[*]Indeed, although killing FTP over SFTP/SCP would be great...
For sure, but unfortunately not all servers support it. The way I see it, FTP is kind of a lowest common denominator (kind of like FAT32), which everything can use (web browsers, any ftp client, CLI tools, download managers, etc)

[*]Win7 currently has a much nicer RSS app, so you might get your wish here.
Good news! I'm looking forward to that.

[*]I think this falls under the Expression products umbrella, so doubt it makes it into the OS anytime soon.
I was thinking the closest product would have been the digital imaging suite, but it wouldn't have to be anything fancy like that even. Anything more than paint would be nice...

[*]One man's garbage is another man's just fine app, so to speak (actually, MCE - but it runs on top of WMP, so...).
I think we've been there already: DRM in recordings, support for the broadcast flag (broadcasters get to chose if they allow you to record something), no support for CableCARD if you build your own MCE box -- nevermind CableCARD is only used in a small fraction of 1 country, which is no help for most people, and besides it tends not to work so great as I've read in some places. And CableCARD is being replaced by SDV in a lot of those places too (seemingly most CableCo's are moving to that) for which MCE has no support, MCE has no support for DVB-* devices (much less for CI modules and such for them), no client/server model (forget about having your noisy multi-terabyte server with all the capture cards away, and a quiet front end in several places), very poor menu design/layout, very bad support for x264-in-mkv files (i.e. all of my HD stuff, I encode in that very popular & good format), the resource usage isn't exactly low, etc. But sure, some people might like it anyways. Some people even like WinME & IE, and that's saying a LOT...

[*]I find the Vista defrag just fine for the majority of users, including myself.
It's improved a lot for sure, I just meant that as in, there's still place for improvement, if they add a few more features, no one would want/need to buy a separate defragmenter anymore (but then again, antitrust issues perhaps)

[*]Gotta wait for powershell to become more mature, I'm expecting these to come as powershell gets older.
And it's certainly getting there quick. One can write/install cmdlets to do most tasks like this, but it would just be nice to have them built-in. But yep, Rome wasn't built in a day. I guess powershell has other things to take care of first (like releasing v2 final, fixing their ngen problems, etc)

[*]With the amount of languages supported, this is currently not financially or code-wise feasible.
Well, even if you'd only support it in your "traditional" 6 or so languages, it would be a start. Code-wise? Looking at projects like aspell, I don't really see why. Financially? I'm sure MS can afford buying a few basic word dictionaries from companies specialized in this (or reuse those from MS Office, even if only using a subset of them?) Oh well.

[*]Live Mesh, it's coming. It's a live product, but it (shock) actually *works*.
That seemed to be more along the lines of sync'ing your desktop with your phone and mp3 player and such. At least that's what I remember about checking it out a while ago. But if it's more than that, sure

[*]This might happen in time, but not soon. All kinds of legal issues.
Understandable. I guess Linux has it easy when it comes to that. They're only distributing updates of open source stuff, so no legal problems there.

[*]Again, one man's trash... IE8 B2 is fantastic, at least as good as FF3 (personally I find it better, but I'm slightly biased - however, being a web dev, it really is at least as good as FF3).
I haven't tried B2, but B1 is a GREAT deal behind FF3 in every aspect IMO. In this particular case, I think it's bias indeed. Especially if you're doing web dev -- there's nothing for IE quite like Firebug, the web developer toolbar and all that (no, Fiddler and such aren't equivalents). If there's one group for which FF truly shines above other browsers, it's web devs.

[*]Hard to say if this will happen, but probably not. Adobe's got this locked up, and it'll be hard to compete and not see the inside of a courtroom.
Adobe discontinued ATM a while back. The only real option I see nowadays is extensis suitcase, at $100. It would still be nice to have something basic in Windows itself, I've only been waiting for that since 3.1 was out But I still totally understand your point.

Beta1 was for web devs, and had very few features that will (are) in B2 and will make the release (hopefully in November). You can't judge IE8 B1 against Firefox, as that was a rendering engine update only, really. Take a look at B2 when it releases.

I was quoting you to agree with your statement ("QFT") - the paragraph you pasted above was actually a reference to the suggestions from others along the lines: "while (1) {smaller = better};".
(Sorry, I should have rearranged the paragraphs or spaced better in my response.)

Did you know your wish has just come true few days ago?

GL

That just made my year. I love that guy.

Cool new util, I've always been a big fan of everything sysinternals.

While it's certainly nicer than virtuawin, it has its share of issues and shortcomings

• when I alt-tab on a new desktop, the cursor vanishes (not only hidden, it's missing altogether, like, it won't make the auto-hidden taskbar show no matter how much you go down)
• it opens up the language bar at the top of my screen for some strange reason (i got that thing closed)
• heap exhaustion problems on some boxes seemingly
• no way to transfer apps between desktops as they're not virtual (it creates a new "real" desktop + instance of explorer.exe to go along with each desktop) -- many apps don't want to be open twice, and you can't exactly open a new Firefox window and drag it there either (forcing you to have all your browser windows on the same desktop)
• desktops can't be closed/destroyed, and as a consequence of that, you can't really close the app itself (otherwise the desktops just stay open with no way to use them, forcing you to reboot to "fix" it)

http://www.codeplex.com/vdm *might* be better. I'll try that one too. I'll have to wait to try it though (don't wanna load it at the same time as sysinternal's, so I have to reboot, and I can't reboot for a while as I'm encoding a hig def movie in x264)

I tried that one, it brought my machine to a crawl. :S

Ok, I'm rectifying the shot about "Modular Windows":

The installation disc can include everything M$ sees fit for an OS, but they should let users customize their installation.
Then, when windows is installed, offer an EASY way to add/remove component _and_ Customize/configurate every setting that it's possible to configurate.

Vista of course

I'm curious about the average specs of the group in the "sticking to XP" category. I can see keeping XP on an older machine; I just re-did my roommate's laptop which is an old (my old) Inspiron 9100, P4 2.8Ghz, 1GB RAM, 60GB hard drive. The hard drive is kinda small for Vista, the other specs are very borderline. That's an XP machine really.

The choice would be more clear if it was "Do you run XP because you want to, or because you have to?"

I use XP64 because I want to. I really tried to like Vista. I really tried to like Vista SP1. But there are still lots of problems with that OS. XP may be 7 years old, but it's stable and fast. Vista to me is just too "meh". Even with Vista SP1 it can still takes ages to copy files. I'm still not too keen on the out of memory while copying files bug that's still lurking around. It seems that they moved stuff around just for the sake of moving it.

I don't like:

The constant thrashing of the HD.
All the graphical glitches in the theme.
Losing performance in 3D apps because of Aero.
The blatant bugs that are classes as 'won't be fixed' that shouldn't have been there at RTM, let alone SP1.

Nothing in that OS is consistent.

My H/W is way more than capable of running Vista, but it does feel too sluggish (to me). I was not impressed with the OS and there was no WOW factor for me.

I think if they can provide the abaility to add/remove features from the Server OS then there should be those same capabilities in the consumer editions as well.

I've posted some screenshots of my file copy speeds before. They're no worse than XP's (some stuff is actually much faster). Out of memory bug? Never had that problem. Sounds like early RTM problems.


I never experienced that


Such as? I don't even know what you're talking about here.


3D performance being lower was due to bad drivers mainly, and that's been fixed.


There aren't that many serious bugs, the only annoying one I can really think of, is the explorer status bar.


The same functionality is already there. Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > "Turn Windows features on or off".

You should read this article on SP1's copy engine improvements : http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/a...04/2826167.aspx

Perhaps you don't have enough memory or you have applications running in the background that are trashing the disks?

I haven't seen any yet.

Well considering that Aero is not actively drawing while you're in a 3D application, I don't see the problem. And if you're in a windowed 3D application and your video card can't draw a bit of transparency while rending it's 3D content then you seriously need to consider a video card upgrade or turning off Aero.

Such as? I haven't actually even encountered anything yet in the OS that would be even classified as a bug.

I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to pay for a faster cleaned up Windows. I would.



I never said everything and what I provided was only an example. There are key parts in the kernel and the driver systems that are not optimal. Try disassembling them and have a look. In other parts of the OS the "optimizing" compiler didn't do a very good job optimizing. Sloppy code = slow code. There are ways to trick a C/C++ compiler in to creating a more efficient compiled version of a routine.


By using an exception handler to detect if SSE2 support is there takes 7 lines of code in C++. There really only needs to be 2 functions for those routines that could benefit from the optimizations, one for a normal routine and one for the optimized routine. The way around one doesn't have to interfere with the other. The OS could detect is SSE2 is present and if so arrange some internal tables (as it does already) to point to the optimized versions. And just like now with Windows, when you call a routine from your program, it calls to a pointer that holds the location of the routine you're calling. No difference with optimized routines either. The Intel C++ compiler does exactly that when it calls routines within its library.

I would argue that if MSFT were to clean up some of the "optimizations" that the compiler produces, foregoing any further optimizing, it would reduce the size of routines and allow for a small increase in execution speeds.


Ok, so your codecs are highly optimized and the drivers that Nvidia/ATI have are as well, but the part of the OS that allows it all to work together is full of unoptimal code (have a look) that causes register stalls, branching problems and cache misses which effectively causes the CPU to take longer to get the job done, then those highly optimized codecs aren't doing the job as fast and as efficiently as possible.



So, in Vista I can totally & completely remove Aero, Windows Mail, Media player, Indexing and Search, and others just like in server 2008? Not a chance. In server I can choose to install the desktop experience pack and if I don't like it I can remove it. There's absolutely no trace of it left. Same with the indexing and search. The whole point in choosing what to install is so that those things that aren't wanted/need never get installed in the 1st place.

It's good start but it's far from what we need.

Half of the things we have no idea what they are talking about or we won't dare touch while many settings are not found there. And no on/off settings are certainly not there, such as passwords, color pickers and so on.

The window, actualy a dialog, is way too small. We are not working on 640x480 monitors anymore. With so many settings better take profit from the whole screen. The tree structure is not the much user friendly.
We need a real control console. Not a popup dialog.

As Mr Cobra said, it's only on/off options, it doesn't remove anything and we have no garantee that what we turned off won't be turned off by a third app or by windows itself as soon as we close the dialog or that the service is 100% iddle.

Jesus that use to drive me up the wall. I had raid 5 array of raptors and the noise that you would hear sometimes would drive me mad. if you disable superfetch it disappeared though.

Another complaint that I often hear is memory usage. I was rather shocked by this. When I installed I had dreams of an OS that would actually use the four gigs of ram I have installed and lightning fast startup times to applications I used most often. Never seen ram usage get above 3.5 gigs even with swapfile disabled. A little disappointed to be honest.

I've been using windows since 3.11...

I am sticking to XP for now (which I just switched to THIS year, was using windows2000 still prior). I don't see ANY reason to upgrade to vista other than useless gadgets and eye candy which I can have on XP anyways.

DX10? please... not worth it for that alone. AFAIK no games require it yet.

I tend to skip over windows versions anyways, it seems to go release, beta, release, beta imo...

and vista is a retail beta version of windows7 imo, but that remains to be seen.

Not too sure, Vista is a bit slower even with a high end system. I'm currently trying Vista again and is definitely something someone will need to acquire a taste / feel to, this eye candy GUI and the new start menu program scroll is too lacking...

Ok, so let's boot up. Select your profile and enter your password. Little Circle spinning stating Preparing Desktop, 5-10seconds, ok Microsofts way of stating "Oh your desktop loads faster". Well sure, after all the applications load in the background, mind you the "Preparing Desktop" screensaver is still displaying, then after those few seconds pass then pop your desktop is there. "Ooooo Ahhhh...." XP loaded much much faster without that "Preparing Desktop" gimmick. Heck, lets' just place the "Preparing Desktop" on XP SP4, XP will then load as fast as you can turn on the light switch!!

Still several visual defects in the GLASS UI bottom and right borders of each window. I've heard stories from some stating "it's suppose to look like glass," Well, quite frankly "GLASS" doesn't have that affect, if you ever worked in a GLASS FACTORY and actually seen glass you would know this. However, glass does give off a slight HUE or TINT on the edges displaying the coat (color) applied to it, but it's a DARK abstract of the glass color... NOT a "BRIGHT TURQUOISE BLUE." With VISTA, regardless of what color you change it to it's this "BRIGHT TURQUOISE BLUE!" Someone at Microsoft needs to get out more, instead of feeding their idealistic taste of what GLASS looks like. Hmmm BRIGHT TURQUOISE on BLACK or GOLD tinted glass?! Don't think so... /EndRant

A couple other issues I've discovered so far is the sequence at which VISTA restarts... Orb > Arrow > Restart ... Windows flickers to the login screen then back to the desktop, flickers a bit more... then finally states "Shutting Down"... didn't I just chose "RESTART"?! Soo, how about network sharing... wow what a knockoff... this is not what Microsoft "Claims" to be the simplest OS yet. Network sharing took me 15minutes to figure out and I'm very displeased by the friendliness, in order for me to share a folder from Vista to XP, I have to create the share > set everyone to the share permissions > THEN set everyone to the security perms, THEN make sure that directory is OWNED by the system administrator. Such a headache and a home user wouldn't have the slightest clue of what I just did. Secondly about Network sharing is after rebooting the system... the shares you removed (root$ shares) are back and the shares you've personally created are now missing.

Plus side of VISTA is there is Tiize (XPero & Vertigosity). I'm a big Tango fan and used Tango Patcher heavily on XP. Strong dislikes of Microsofts so called artistic ability. So, I get a taste of a Real Desktop.

For now I vote XP!

Whoever said Windows is one-size-fits-all is absolutely right.

In a nutshell, Windows is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

If you're an IT professional and want something better, use a Linux distro. Don't expect Microsoft to cater Windows ONLY to your group.

If you struggle with computers and Windows is too much of a hurdle, use a Mac. (although Vista seems to be a half-hearted effort in catering to the Mac group...)

Windows, in general, can do something for everyone, but can seldom 100% satisfy anyone.

Macs seldom satisfy the super-power computer geek haxxor person (I say seldom because Mac OSX is built on UNIX, which does allow control for the SPCGHP. )

On the same note, Grandma and Grandpa will seldom see any comfort with Linux (I say seldom because Ubuntu does provide some level of comfort, but its Linux roots are still there--grandparents shouldn't have to recompile anything--it should "just work")

To use a Dungeons & Dragons reference:

Mac = Fighter. Simple and effective. Gets the job done. Like the Fighter, the Mac has limited options for situations not optimized for it (Fighters can't cast Fireballs to toast large groups, while Macs can't run a good portion of the software out there). Attracts people because of the physique/muscles/showing-off/bling/whatever.

Linux = Mage. Plenty of options and tricks. Doesn't have much "bloat" (except for the spellcaster that learns useless spells, I guess). Turns people away because of initial awkwardness/introversion or arrogance ("I'm better than you are!").

Windows = 2nd Edition Bard. Can cast spells like the Mage and can bash stuff like the Fighter, but is not as good at either of those. Is not as socially awkward as the Mage/Linux nor does it have the physique of the Fighter/Mac.

Having said all that, I do like my Vista x64 box with 8 GB of RAM and a Q6600. XP 64 has had too many driver incompatibilities from my experience...

Gotta call you out here just for correctness - Mac OS X is based on the Mach Kernel, which was derived from the Berkeley BSD implementation of NeXTStep (note that the actual name for the kernel is XNU - X is Not Unix). It is *not* a Unix. It's POSIX compliant, yes, but *not* a Unix. While a good post, I don't want noobs thinking that by using OS X, they're using a true Unix - they are not.

You're wrong. Mac OS X IS a certified UNIX. See: http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/

That said, BSD is as close as UNIX can get. It's the UNIX that all other flavors are based upon. Nowadays, UNIX is just an expensive certification and licensing thing...

Technically, only OS X 10.5 is a certified Unix (although I was unaware that it had received the certification - good find for you). I don't see 10.6 on that list, or 10.4 and older, meaning right now only 10.5 is a "true" Unix. As to it being an expensive licensing thing, maybe - the Unix certification means that any applications written for a Unix spec (in Apple's case, Unix 03) will run properly unmodified on the host system. And considering the highest license cost for the Unix trade mark is $110,000, it's not that expensive for a vendor to get the certification as a Unix if they pass the tests. It might not mean much to you or I on a desktop machine, but for servers and workstations in enterprise-grade environments, knowing that (when you need Unix) that you can buy anything on the list of certified Unices and they'll all conform to the standard is a big deal.