Why vista will suck!

[Sharktooth]

Never heard of hardware/driver conflicts? I do... and it happens with certified hw/sw too.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Define conflict. If it means that certain software won't work properly with hardware, that's a completely different animal than causing a fatal error in the kernel leading to a stop condition.

Certification is about robustness and adherence to hardware and software best practices. If there are conflicts due to 3rd software not communicating with your driver properly, that's crap programming by one or both parties.

This part of this epic thread is about signing, not logo certification. The goals and testing requirements are completely different.

Based on what you (and others with the same view) have said, there should just be a free-for-all of people writing shite drivers. It already happens - even in XP you get the "this ain't signed, are you really willing to install it".

If you personally haven't taken a product through the certification process, frankly you are talking from a position of ignorance.

People bitch and moan about Vista's unbelievable security restrictions (I hope I haven't infringed your copyright on that ;) ) and, in the same breath (perhaps through a second face), complain about how insecure Vista is. Kernel-mode driver signing is a helpful start to address that. And, as I mentioned before - seemingly to great effect given the deafening silence it generated - mandated 64-bit driver signing can be disabled (except for drivers loaded at boot time).

As for the cost passed onto the consumer, how many millions of, say, a given nVidia graphics card are sold and how much of the millions of dollars of revenue are offset for signing and certification?

How many WHQL certified hardware + driver products do actually cause BSODs? And how many do not?

I have only experienced one BSOD with Vista in the 12 months I have been using it. That was early on with an old soundcard that happened to be in the box. I had installed it to (unsuccessfully) work with XP. The last drivers ever written for it were for Windows 2000. On the same system, I have used beta nVidia drivers without issue.

So, do you actually use Vista on a regular basis? If so, do you have lots of BSODs?

[Sharktooth]

Out of curiosity i tried to install vista on an box with an athlon xp 2600+, a geforce 6600 AGP video card, an asus a7n8x (nvidia chipset) motherboard and 1.5Gigz or ram.
the installation program refused to find my sata hard drive... i then searched for the silicon image SATA controller drivers and after hours of searching (since that controller model was no longer supported!) i found them. i found out that nvidia has no vista drivers for that chipset (motherboard) too but vista attempted to "fix" the problem and offered to install some 3rd party (but WHQLed and distributed by microsoft) realtek drivers "that are supposed to work" (at least for the integrated audio controller, the nvidia MCP - that's not realtek!!!)...the 3com ethernet controller doesnt work at all (the nvidia one does though) instead. after installing all drivers (at least those which i and it found) vista started up for a couple of times. i just had the time to do all the updates from windows update and... surprise, BSOD. the sata controller drivers (WHQL!!!) crashed and the partitions was completely messed up.
1 hour later i managed to manually recover the MBR and almost all system files and luckily the system started again (thanx to linux...).
after issuing a disk check, i ensured all updates were installed (except language packs and vista ultimate extras... coz i dont give a sheep about them...) and i proceeded installing some softwares (usual stuff, avisynth, megui, etc). after a couple of reboots, one more BSOD and the partition is gone again...
the sata driver crashed causing massive data and filesystem structure corruption...
i threw the vista DVD outta window while wiping the partition... plugged in my good old seagate drive with XP installed and it worked like a charme.
Now, if what you say is true, someone explain me how the hell those drivers got the WHQL certification fom MS...

[JohnnyMalaria]

No wonder you have such a dim view of Vista :)

If I'd have gone through the same thing, I'd have thrown it out the window, too...

[Shinigami-Sama]

we had similar problems on Virtual machines with Business edition
then again we broke the EULA to do it though so MS would probably wouldn't even give us the time of day rather than an answer why

[HyperHacker]

I take it that drive never had any problems before or after this incident? I'd suspect a faulty drive otherwise.

[Sharktooth]

the drive is ok. it even passed the surface test of the disk check. however there's suse 10.3 on it right now and it's working perfectly on the same box.

[JohnnyMalaria]

the drive is ok. it even passed the surface test of the disk check. however there's suse 10.3 on it right now and it's working perfectly on the same box.

Maybe Vista is smarter than we could ever imagine and it KNEW that Suse would end up on there sooner or later. Whether this means Vista bowed down to a greater system or decided to screw you up because you would dare to use something else is a question that maybe only Steve Jobs can answer.:p

[smileBhappy]

Out of curiosity i tried to install vista on an box with an athlon xp 2600+, a geforce 6600 AGP video card, an asus a7n8x (nvidia chipset) motherboard and 1.5Gigz or ram.
the installation program refused to find my sata hard drive... i then searched for the silicon image SATA controller drivers and after hours of searching (since that controller model was no longer supported!) i found them. i found out that nvidia has no vista drivers for that chipset (motherboard) too but vista attempted to "fix" the problem and offered to install some 3rd party (but WHQLed and distributed by microsoft) realtek drivers "that are supposed to work" (at least for the integrated audio controller, the nvidia MCP - that's not realtek!!!)...the 3com ethernet controller doesnt work at all (the nvidia one does though) instead. after installing all drivers (at least those which i and it found) vista started up for a couple of times. i just had the time to do all the updates from windows update and... surprise, BSOD. the sata controller drivers (WHQL!!!) crashed and the partitions was completely messed up.
1 hour later i managed to manually recover the MBR and almost all system files and luckily the system started again (thanx to linux...).
after issuing a disk check, i ensured all updates were installed (except language packs and vista ultimate extras... coz i dont give a sheep about them...) and i proceeded installing some softwares (usual stuff, avisynth, megui, etc). after a couple of reboots, one more BSOD and the partition is gone again...
the sata driver crashed causing massive data and filesystem structure corruption...
i threw the vista DVD outta window while wiping the partition... plugged in my good old seagate drive with XP installed and it worked like a charme.
Now, if what you say is true, someone explain me how the hell those drivers got the WHQL certification fom MS...

Your story is familiar. I had to convert to vista at work because all the new pc's are shipping with it. I tried to 3 weeks to get it working with all our software and on the network and gave up in the end.

If you have a vista license on your pc you can downgrade to XP by installing XP and phoning up microsoft when you try an dactivate it.

[Sirber]

Guess what... I'll be going back to XP32! I'm deepely bored of UAC and to not find things easily in the control panel. Aero sucks hard (linux has more 3D on a 20x less powerful machine). Also, DX10 is a big disapointment.

Big fail.... big fail...

[Sharktooth]

still unpatched:
Crash while calling FltIsDirectory
This is a bug in FltIsDirectory. System Image Manager uses wimfltr.sys to overlay the contents of a wim on top of ntfs, and wimfltr takes ownership of any file objects in that overlay and uses its own format for the structures in the FsContext1 and FsContext2 fields.
The bug occurs when you call FltIsDirectory on a file that wimfltr.sys owns. Instead of sending the IRP for this function to all the filters in the device stack, filter manager sends the IRP directly down to NTFS. NTFS doesn't know how to deal with wimfltr's custom FsContext fields, and crashes.
Until a fix for this issue is available, you should avoid calling FltIsDirectory on file objects exposed by wimfltr. These files have NodeTypeCode == 0x1029 in their FSRTL_ADVANCED_FCB_HEADER.
and makes Vista severely CRASH or even REBOOT...

[Dr.Khron]

Ditto on the DX10 being a big disappointment, I'm glad I installed Vista on an separate drive that was easy to remove.

Basically boils down to: slightly better textures (in some cases), and slightly better mapping (in some cases), all for a rather massive performance hit. I dunno... maybe once its been out for a while the developers will learn to overcome its inherent short comings?

Why does this make me long for the days of OpenGL?



Here is an interesting piece on Leopard vs Vista:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2223921,00.asp

He claims that Apple made many of the same mistakes with Leopard that MS did with Vista. Not exactly a new idea, but this guy offers five concrete examples. He also has an interesting perspective, as he just recently started using Macs with the prior OS.

[HyperHacker]

DX10 was clearly a trojan horse. Release it only for Vista, games will come out only supporting DX10+, gamers are forced to "upgrade".

[JohnnyMalaria]

DX10 was clearly a trojan horse. Release it only for Vista, games will come out only supporting DX10+, gamers are forced to "upgrade".

That's the way it works...

[Nematocyst]

DX10 was clearly a trojan horse. Release it only for Vista, games will come out only supporting DX10+, gamers are forced to "upgrade".

I don't know when, but it's been speculated that XP users may eventually be able to get DX10 by running a windows version of Wine (http://www.winehq.org). That will be hilarious if it ever comes to pass.

[Inventive Software]

Microsoft had better get some severe backlash in the next 4 quarters for not releasing DX10 under XP...

[burfadel]

All I can say about Vista x64, once its changed to MY preferences :) - people complain about a lack of a feature, and when added complain about it, but thats life! Anyways, it runs much better than XP ever has for me. I've treated this installation pretty roughly, installing/uninstalling, playing/fiddling, etc etc. and it still runs fast and flawlessly.

I have mind you, used vlite and streamlines every normal downloadable + the normally not downloadable patches (of which there were at least a couple of hundred) into the installation before using. The interesting thing is, this was my first install - yes, still running on the bast***ised Windows with no problems! Only problem I had was one blue screen crash, which did create a stupdily large memory dump file before the the reset button was blessed with my finger, and that was caused by faulty memory that probably got that way through overclocking! Once the new mem went in no probs (and no activation issues). The jump from 2gb to 4gb (on x64 of course) was a very good one, it works much better on 4gb, Vista certainly loves its ram! to the point that its faster than XP.

The trick is, on older computers (Athlon 64 single cores, P4's (even recent ones sorry to say) and less than Nvidia 8600 or equivalent, or those with 1gb or less RAM) to run XP, those with at least 2gb (2gb max for Vista x86 effectively anway), Core 2/Athlon X2, nvidia 8600 or equivalent and above, to run Vista.

Outside the above remarks, Vista is slower on Vista than XP. Get x64 version, then 4gb of ram if you can!

[Shinigami-Sama]

one good thing about vista
downgrade licence, so if they ever manage to salvage it...

and yeah, i also expected more out of DX10, but I hear good things of DX 10.1, heres hoping its not as bad as DX10

[Sharktooth]

the downgrade right is for vista business and ultimate only...: http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/4/5f4c83d3-833e-4f11-8cbd-699b0c164182/royaltyoemreferencesheet.pdf
for example you cant downgrade vista home basic/premium (or other kind of licenses) to XP home or pro...

[Hard Core Rikki]

Vista SP1 supposedly will bring dramatic boost of network speed (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=336). Not enough to encourage me to "upgrade" here, though I guess random joe would be pleased by such changes...

[JohnnyMalaria]

The gains are only really beneficial either when transfering between a Vista PC and a Home Server, or when transfering small files.

For large files (like most of us deal with), transfer between two Vista machines is actually a tad slower with SP1 than RTM.

[Sharktooth]

lol... not only Vista is slower than any previous windows versions (and other less known OSes...) during network operations (and in any other way), but those "improvements" are just BUG FIXES for something that was supposed to work from the beginning.
So, M$ is advertising SP1 will triple the network speed... i would say they finally made it work at the speed it was supposed to work from day 1! and btw previous versions (and other less known OSes) are still faster...

[Shinigami-Sama]

the downgrade right is for vista business and ultimate only...: http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/4/5f4c83d3-833e-4f11-8cbd-699b0c164182/royaltyoemreferencesheet.pdf
for example you cant downgrade vista home basic/premium (or other kind of licenses) to XP home or pro...

then its a good thing I tell people to buy business then if they insist on vista

as for the network increases
I guess they finally figured out how to make a good NDIS driver, one that doesn't max the CPU on a gigE network
:rolleyes:

[zambelli]

If anyone cares: Vista SP1 Release Candidate is now available to Technet subscribers:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/bb738089.aspx

[4Dude]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/11/snag-vista-ultimate-for-free-in-exchange-for-your-privacy

Apparently you can get Vista for FREE provided you KNOWINGLY let Microsoft MONITOR YOUR EVERY MOVE FOR 3 MONTHS!

I VALUE MY PRIVACY and would not do this!!!!

Anyone else feel as i do?

[Shinigami-Sama]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/11/snag-vista-ultimate-for-free-in-exchange-for-your-privacy

Apparently you can get Vista for FREE provided you KNOWINGLY let Microsoft MONITOR YOUR EVERY MOVE FOR 3 MONTHS!

I VALUE MY PRIVACY and would not do this!!!!

Anyone else feel as i do?

this is one where I'd just attach it to a private VPN and leave it running for three months stock
;)

[Sharktooth]

I guess you can manage to build a virtual machine and let their spying software run inside it... and get the license for free.
Uhm... i should try it... just coz i actually have an unlicensed Vista copy that i ONLY use to test bugs reported from MeGUI users AND Vista...

[Hard Core Rikki]

Apparently you can get Vista for FREE provided you KNOWINGLY let Microsoft MONITOR YOUR EVERY MOVE FOR 3 MONTHS!

I VALUE MY PRIVACY and would not do this!!!!

Anyone else feel as i do?

It's cheaper for them than hiring armed guards to monitor your every downloads ;)

[communist]

"What happened to the free product option?

Thank you for your interest in the feedback program. Due to overwhelming response, the supply of gifts have been exhausted so we have closed our free product offer on 12/11/2007 at 2pm. Thanks to everyone that participated!"
Anyway if one really wanted to go with it here is what you should have done:
1) Install it
2) Dual boot into your 'real' installation
3) Wait 3 months
4) ???
5) Profit ;)

[JohnnyMalaria]

If you don't want MS snooping around and still want Vista and not want to pay full retail, just do this (with SP1):

Install it.
Don't activate it.
Wait until the activation grace period expires.
Follow the instructions to purchase a legit license from MS for less than half retail (e.g.,$199 for Ultimate) - it is the full retail product, not OEM.

[Sharktooth]

if you do that, probably your PC will connect to some spying satellite or system (echelon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON) or something) and it will secretly access your bank account and pay M$ the remaining difference from the retail version while sending them your private data for the rest of your life.
will also modify on the fly the online bank reports whenever you access them, so you have no suspects...
LOL :D

[Hard Core Rikki]

Anyone here think peoples' mp3/movie downloading/viewing habits wouldn't be monitored, for "services improving" (and/or undisclosed RIAA usage? :p)

Seriously, online privacy has been going downhill pretty quickly these years. I remember the time back when XP was first launched, so much outrage at the mere idea of online activation. From the terms I read on their site, this freebie thingie looks like a very significant privacy hole. WGA looked tamer than this...

[communist]

Its voluntary! No one is forcing you to participate in this program. If you dont like it keep using your copy of XP/Vista/Linux/whatever. We are not talking about computers coming preloaded with such a windows version, where you dont have the choice to get a non-monitored version.

OTOH stuff like this and recent actions from others (Facebook / Beacon) clearly show that the barrier to employ such schemes at all seems to have dropped a lot over the years. Or maybe I just never noticed it ;)

[deathkenli]

it's better than the crappy leopard anyway

[deathkenli]

monitored by micro$oft is a little better than being monitored by the evil british government.