Wanderer wrote:Windows has always made their latest OS work best on top-of-the-line machines...When 98 came out, when 95 came out, when 2000 came out, everyone complained what a resource hog they were. We used to say Windows 95 was the quickest way to turn a Pentium into a 386.
A year or two from now, these kinds of complaints will be moot. When you have the hardware and memory for it, Vista runs just fine.
Sure, you CAN get an os that isn't as much of a resource hog. Heck, I can go back to MS-DOS 5.0 if I'm that worried about it. But I'm not
My machine handles vista, and so it suits me just fine. It's a good strategy for Microsoft, because it gives the OS a little more shelf life.
Your OS can have shelf life without outstripping machines that M$ stated very clearly and specifically that Vista would have no problems running on.
The fact that Vista, according to M$, was supposed to work on the everyday machine right out of the box with 100% of its features turned on bothers me to the n'th degree.
I specifically requested extra RAM with my most recent laptop because I knew Vista would be a pig in the mire without it, and quite frankly my machine opperates at what M$ claimed would be an average level despite having 2g of RAM with all the doodads turned off. Now, according to Microsoft, I should be able to get these results with all the doodads turned on, but that's just not the case. Like I said before, there's more than enough room for improvement; IMHO, prolly more than XP ever had.
And quite frankly, one doesn't need a Jesuscomputer to get that kind of eye candy; look at what some people are doing with gentoo, it's gorgeous and completely capable of running on less than a gig of ram.
Now, you say vista runs just fine on your unit, but is your unit what the average computer user goes down to best buy and picks up? I'm betting not. MS didn't pay attention to what average joe computer user actually needed in an OS; no, they made every attempt to throw a nuke at OSX and ended up shooting the average end user in the foot, and let's be honest, you and I are most certainly not the average end user. We know very well what we're doing and how to make our operating system do what we want it to do, but average joe computer user doesn't; he doesn't have the time, if not the inclination, to become a power user. A truly
good operating system would work with what the average user is buying, and vista does not in many cases. How much has truly changed about the features of the average joe computer user's computer purchasing options in the last two years? Not a whole heck of a lot. My five year old laptop came with a 1.8 ghz processor and 1 gig of ram. They still offer pretty much the same damn computer at the store five years later, in a shiny new case with a higher definition screen and a DVDRW combo drive. My computer was certainly not state of the art when I bought it; I bought it at Best Buy for just shy of $1k, because that's all I had to spend at the time. I could have bought a boutique laptop and had a stellar performance machine that would still be viable another two years from now for under another grand, but I didn't
need it.
Average joe computer user is buying computers with specs very similar to ones offered five years ago. Dropping an a-bomb of an OS on the market has been slow to change that. During the year-plus that Vista has been on the market, the market has indicated that people are going to buy according to their needs, and that the category called 'needs' doesn't neccisarily include extra expense for optional equipment to facilitate the switch to a new quirky OS.
There's nothing wrong with designing an OS for what technology will come down the pipe in the future, however, making that programming work properly with what the average user has or can be offered is important too, and vista has aptly demonstrated why. What M$ has done with Vista has done is most certainly not good business; if it was, why would manufacturers suddenly be offering downgrades to XP or other OSs some months after Vista debuts? This is not making MS any dough... Why, for as small a chunk of the market as they have, would Apple experience their largest increase in market share in the company's history? Between the release of vista and today, Apple has taken a bigger bite (however small that bite might be) out of MS than they ever have before. Macs have had more anual "converts" since the release of Vista than ever before as well. Many if not most of those who switch to apples state that dissatisfaction with MS and Vista as impetus for their switch. This is not good for MS, no matter how small a differece it might be. It might be nominal now, but lets say, just for sake of argument, that Vista doesn't end up getting its act together the way XP did; will more users be driven to Apple? It's a distinct possiblility.
Before vista was released, I never once had someone ask during casual conversation if I knew anything about Linux, now the average question I get from friends and family about Linux is "What do you know about Linux and would it be feasable to switch to it from vista."
I'd be willing to bet that even a year from now we'll still see stores selling basic average-joe computers that will just barely run vista. Another year, and yes, the very idea may well indeed be moot, because either what the average joe computer user has available at a reasonable price will have caught up to what vista requires to run properly or there'll be another OS coming down the pipe...hopefully M$ will do it properly that time around.
Quite frankly, I'd rather wait a year or two longer for a relatively bug-free OS that will run on what is available instead of trying to force a market upgrade. That's exactly what
should have happened with vista; it should have stayed in beta form in R&D for another year. If M$ would have spent the last year polishing their development of Vista instead of trying to beat OSX to the punch,
Vista could have been a truly great operating system, and it most certainly would have knocked a blow to OSX, but as it stands, it's just mediocre even with a years worth of updates.
anywhooo...
</rant>
“First lesson: money is not wealth; Second lesson: experiences are more valuable than possessions; Third lesson: by the time you arrive at your goal it’s never what you imagined it would be so learn to enjoy the process” - unknown
If you think the effects are even kind of cool take a look at Compiz: 
