Travels with Vista

Quelle surprise!

Not!

It's only because of a de-facto virtual monopoly that Microsoft's shoddy goods can be pedalled to the masses whilst riddled with bugs.

I only write small relatively trivial control programs....but they have to be userfriendly and work.

(Don't let my Wife see this she thinks windows and microsoft are wonderful)

Calm..calm...where did I put that glass of wine?

I think many will feel as you do Del . I am remaining with my eXtremely Padded version of Windows. It would be a dream come true if I could strip out the bloat that I have no need or use for. I need a car to get from A to B and microsoft insist on me using something that resembles the fleet in Wacky Races. Hang on , I take that back. Those vehicles were enjoyably eccentric and usually got to the finnish line.

ps - your wife would be great on CR4 , she has a wickedly good sense of humour. I have this mental picture of her saying ' carry on Del , Vista is lovely , keep using windows' as she stands behind you appreciating the rapidly increasing usefulness of your head as a quick mirror before returning to her own Linux sytem.

Yeah, LINUX... If you are into writing your own drivers!!! Which most people can't even imagine!

XP seems to be very stable if you have SP2 and a whole lot of patches. However, it wasn't always this way. In the beginning, a lot of people were stung by the fact that some of your software wouldn't run on your upgrade to XP. They might have told us that before hand... Wait, I think they did. It was in 8 point font somewhere in the back of the installation guide that said, "If you purchase software, make sure the box says it's XP compatible."

Anyway the point is that XP eventually became a very solid Windows operating system. As for Vista, hang back and let all the sacrificial lambs install it. You'll know when it's time to make the move. Oh, and by the way, remember in Vista, even if you're the only one who runs your PC, you're still not administrator by default.

He he , you know I like to whine . I'll do it about anything.

I've made some fairly determined attempts to screw my XP home and it has survived fairly impressively with my random tinkering. Delaying upgrade is almost an unwritten law (unless you enjoy spending months coping with glitches)

I thought it was not such a good idea to be using your own pc as an Admin all the time - if somebody gets in , they have more chance to create havoc ?

that is true, but it limits you from doing a whole bunch of things you'd just normally do with previous versions of Windows. You need a good virus checker and a a good spyware checker running 24/7 if you're always admin.

"...It would be a dream come true if I could strip out the bloat that I have no need or use for..."

But you can:

Start/.../Control Panel/System/Advanced...

There, define it to the degree of Bloat vs Performance ratio of your choice.

You can even make it look like Windows 98 if you like.

Well, Windows 2000 to be exact.

I actually Prefer Windows 2000, because it is faster and more stable than XP. More predictable. Reliable that is. Cheaper, I mean better, neater media-player that is. Nicer, cleared, less automatic, I mean more controllable that is. More adaptable, I mean shorter to install, that is. Why, I even run some Windows 3.1 applications on it, so stable it is.

Sure you can change programs and interface appearance , but no way can you slim down the space the whole os takes up. All those integral routines are welded to it like 'glass on glass' - linked in a molecular bond type way. I still have millenium on one machine. I hate to admit it , but i now like xp. Vista - forget it . I will consider it when vienna arrives.

What do you care about hard-disk space?

It's giga-a-dime these days.

It's RAM space that matters for speed of processing.

The swap there is to reduce CPU-cycles dedicated to XP kitchy-graphics and optimise the rest for some useful task-management.

So if I sell you a car with a 1-ton weight welded on , you'd be happy so long as the engine is big enough to match ? I can add an extra 5 rows of seats , 6 horns and a sunroof on the trunk if you like. You don't ? - Maybe I'll make sure it's the only one you can buy. Everybody will have one - one size fits all , all needs catered for in one. You will be allowed to choose a colour for the seat fabric perhaps. Roll up , roll up , buy an omniputer now . It's the only deal in town. Best get one 'cos you wont be able to drive the old one anywhere soon.

There's some truth to this hype, in the sense that it was like an arms-race:

The OS moguls packed more and more on the chassis, so you had to buy bigger and bigger engines, over the years, just to keep it running the same speed, or even slower, to be exact.

Remember how fast were the DOS 3D simulators of 1995-6 compared to those running today, on some hundred-times faster machines? They were written in Assembler, not Visual Studio.

These days even Operating Systems are written with the aid of Applications-Generator, the highest level programming there is, and the most irrelevant garbage their runtimes (*.exe) contain.

Only now, on XP, you're given the option to strip all these padded graphics to gain some speed back.

If you really want to kvetch, what about all the MAC OS's before MAC OS 10? They all had to contain a really, really bloated and slow hard drive routine so they were backward compatible. God! They were slow!!! They're death was when Adobe made Photoshop and Illustrator as pretty on Windows as it was on the MAC. The only reason why their stock is worth so much is because of the IPod.

Now MAC OS is better and based on UNIX/LINUX, but guess what? ^{Their OS is built on top of FORTH! Shhhh! It's a secret.}

Forth is not only a very efficient Assembler-Compiler, you can also define high level commands in it, tailor-made for your project-specific algo-engines.

So, in fact it's an assembler able to function as an application generator, not the other way around, as Visual Studio is.

A lot of this FORTH functionality is relatively new. I remember a time when it didn't have floating-point capability. And it really didn't need it if you knew how to program.

I have been using Vista 64 for about 3 months now without any problems. They have changed things around a little from XP (made them harder in my opinion). For compatability I installed microsoft virtual pc (free). I can run XP, WIN 98, WIN 95, DOS and Millenium I guess (although i don't know why anyone would), in a window on vista. All of my software and peripherals run under one of these operating systems. The only bad thing is that vitual pc does not allow access to the usb hardware... yet. there are some other Vitual PC emulators that can access usb hardware (not free).

That's interesting Bill . Multiple os is no problem , but why do you force a new one on us each year. Can you sign in or register next time so we know who you are. It helps to know who's saying what.

One of the biggest problems with vISTA is that you can't buy a new computer without it.

RichH

Pre-loaded software is annoying. Why not format your Hard drive and blow Vista out of existance ? I see no reason why you cant do that , then load up XP or something.

I just got a new computer... It came with XP installed.

Pre-loaded software is annoying. Why not format your Hard drive and blow XP out of existance ? I see no reason why you cant do that , then load up 98 or something.

That's because XP has become a relatively stable operating system... By the way, you should have suggested Me.

Pre-loaded software is annoying. Why not format your Hard drive and blow ME out of existance ? I see no reason why you cant do that , then load up 2000 or something.

Bill pays me commission every time I do this ! It really will go on forever. At least once per year we're hoping 'Ooohhh , Vienna' . (my singing is rubbish)

Take the hard drive of your new computer and squish a squirrel. Then just do what seem right.

I believe we are already going that way - online storage of mail etc/rented software and so on. Hard Drives will not go on increasing in size for pc's . Diversified storage will take over. If I was you , I'd stash a few HD's now - one day they will be valued antiques (especially by the paranoid like me). Spooky huh ? Your desktop will be no more than an interface to some creepy big computer elsewhere , and you'll just pay by the hour to have someone ' look after ' all those files and programs.

Except that people like comcast suddenly stop storing without notice, and 2 years of email are reduced to a naught.

And whrn I buy software, I can continue to use the older, more comfortable and frequently more useful version rather than having to use a newer, less valuable (to me) piece of bloatware. I'm almost certain that I would not be able to continue with my Office 2000 under network use.

I had a trial of Office Vista and can't imagine a less useful "improvement". And, I would have far less choice as the network native software would always default up on file associations, driving out the smaller software companies.

RichH

RichH

Ya know, this has been a running argument since the beginning of the computer age. At first, the best anyone could get was an account on Tymeshare or an account to a large computer running at some institution. You could do anything you wanted, but access the memory of the computer directly. So, while BASIC was new, you couldn't PEEK or POKE memory. That would violate your capabilities and potentially bring the whole computer down. It wasn't until the first generations of personal computers were created that PEEK and POKE became common commands in BASIC. Who cared if you messed up your own computer.

With the advent of personal computers everything was open, and wow! Anything goes! Then, came the age of the disk-less workstation. You booted from a large computer online, and could store your files only on the big computer. And just like the concept of the car versus mass-transit, Americans said "I want my own computer!"

From time-to-time someone predicts that storage (particularly) will eventually exist on some giant main-frame, but the American Spirit seems to overcome. "I want to do it myself! Waaaaaa!" And business is all too happy to come up with new ways to store our data ourselves.

"You can take my porn when you pry my d#*K from my cold, dead fingers!"

I like your optimism vermin , but elapsed time with electronics and computers is a blip in time. For now , you can keep the HD 'cos we know where you visit. I still have vinyl and cassetes with music on. Players are harder to come by. The analogy is not perfect. Just read/watch 1984. Only the date is wrong. Me a cynical pessimist. nooo !

The point is that nice, Europeans and Japanese get along just fine with mass transit. To Americans, however, the mere words stick in our throats and have us clutching for our muskets. Why do you think we have the No. 1 biggest carbon footprint on the planet? We loves our independence. And that means cars and computers that stand alone.

Heck, when someone comes up with the google-bit holographic memory card, I'll be standing in line with everyone else to get one, because I want my porno to be my porno, and I don't want it touching yours!!!

You know I like to share upgrade advice vermin.

Man, I loved it.

So true-like I wanna cry, so I'll laugh instead.