Vista Beta 2 released to the public June 7. Want to try it? Here’s the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mspx
Archive for the ‘Vista (Longhorn)’ Category
Vista Beta 2 released to the public
Thursday, June 8th, 2006Vista Birthing
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006The Beta 2 of Microsoft Vista, or more technically “Vista Consumer CTP” or Community Technology Preview, should be released at any moment. Reports from those using this Beta 2 will be the big clue as to whether Microsoft can meet their delivery date of getting Vista to major customers in Novemeber and to the public in January. Beta 2 has to be stable enough for day-to-day work, or the testers can’t complete their work on time. Manufacturing has to start soon, so the Beta 2 stability is a critical issue for the January release.
Microsoft released in May the final hardware specs to run Vista:
Vista Capable (Just to run Vista)
800 Mhz processor
512M RAM
DirectX 9 support at graphics processor
PCs with all Vista Features
1GHz processor
1G RAM
128 Mb of video memory
Direct 9 capable, plus WDDM suppport, Pixel Shader 2 support, and a color depth of 32 bits a pixel
Remember that the processor support with Vista is much more demanding, so you should expect slower response on any current system unless you have upgraded the hardware to handle the extra load.
Vista - 20 Questions
Tuesday, May 30th, 2006With Microsoft’s new operating system on the horizon, what are some of the key questions you are asking? Here is a good overview from Information Week.:
http://www.desktoppipeline.com/187202950
The Myths of Vista
Friday, April 14th, 2006Microsoft has a new operating system coming out in less that a year - Vista. Let’s look at some real questions about Vista. Are the rumors you hear about Vista true or false?
I’m going to need new hardware to run Vista.
Not really. but if you want the neat features of the Aero user interface you will need a good Direct9x graphics card . Example graphics cards that DO support Vista include the GeForce 7600 GT and the Radeon X1600 Pro. For legacy systems of recent years or systems without a good graphics card, Vista wil revert to a legacy mode that drops the fancy user interface. Within a few months, you should begin to see hardware selling that is certified for Vista but selling with the XP operating system.
Vista is a pretty face on an old system. Why upgrade?
Although the planned features for Vista have been dramatically scaled back, the emphasis has been on developing a system that was much, much more secure. The product is built on the Windows 2003 Service Pack 1, with lots of improvements. It is not built on XP.
Microsoft is having trouble developing Vista and that’s why the release is set back to early next year.
An operating system is generally the most complex program to run on a computer. It has to own ALL the resources of the computer and manage these for all running application programs. It also has to maintain security. Windows 9x systems, including ME, were not operating systems. Windows NT was Microsoft’s first stab at a real OS, and Windows 2000 was next. All of these took lots of memory and fast processor power. Windows XP was next and processor and memory prices dropped. Now you could have a real OS on your desktop.
It’s been six years now since XP came out. Vista now has to work with .Net, SQL Server, Office, Media Player, thousands of application programs, and more. It also has to provide an unprecedented security level for the user. There is also more competition and strong competition: Linux and Apple and even Google are breathing down Microsoft’s neck.
Vista won’t be secure.
Gates is promising that in the development of Vista they focused on providing much better security. Many features were dropped in order to focus on the goal in a very strategic way. To install applications, for example, you will have to enter a password. The malware artists are getting smarter and Microsoft can’t promise Vista can’t be broken, but you will have a much, much harder time doing it. And, let’s face it, with security issues the user is generally the weakest link. The better artists use social engineering to get the user to break their own system.
Vista has too Many Packaging Options
True. With XP, if you want the hot version of Media Center it only comes as an OEM version. You have to purchase it as part of a computer from a main-line manufacturer. You can’t build your own system and add it. With Vista, you will be able to purchase it as part of the Premium or Ultimate versions of Vista. Then there is the Vista Business version, which has the PC Tablet functions but not the Media Center. Or Vista Enterprise for corporate businesses. And then there are those features that aren’t ready yet that you may be able to add later.
Microsoft - Another “Lost” Reality Show?
Wednesday, January 11th, 2006Some of you have noticed that our black list of spammers doesn’t work at the moment. If you want to hack these IPs at the moment, just email us from our contact form and we’ll email you the ACCESS file. Meanwhile, here is what happened.
The black list is kept on a local database on our Windows 2000 system and it drives a MySQL database on the Linux host using a MySQL driver 3.51. We recently updated our Windows 2000 SP3 to SP4 and got all those security fixes installed. Now the SQL driver doesn’t work. Yep, I uninstalled the driver and ACCESS and re-installed both. The error message when we try comes from ACCESS is that the OBDC call failed. It use to work. No additional messages. The system is a Dell workstation. Dell has no clue as to what happened. It is, of course, a Microsoft problem. Microsoft wants $245 dollars to tell me what happened. That’s more than my Windows 2000 cost. And what they will probably tell me for $245 is to reformat my disk and reload Windows and all my programs. (Yes, our data is all backed up.) I’m willing to bet the register is corrupt and that is the problem.
Do you want to know why Microsoft has all the security problems that it does? It isn’t the number of Windows systems out there, but rather the register design. Vista won’t help Microsoft unless they are serious about fixing Windows, and Microsoft has lost trust on that.
Summary
To quote Cringely from the 1/9/2006 issue of Infoworld:
Desktop Linux is looking more attractive every day.
Our host system is a Linux. We couldn’t afford to run our web site on a host that crashes like Windows does. At the desktop level, Microsoft is now competing with Linux, Apple (now using Intel processor chips), and soon GoogleDos. Why should I have to pay for a Microsoft problem, such as my ACCESS problem?
The answer, I would think, would be for Windows’ users to rise up with a class action suite. This was suggested in Inforworld 1/9 by Dave Rosenberg. When do Windows’ users get compensated for Microsoft’s mistakes?
Meanwhile, we are loading the SQL driver onto another system and hope to have the black list up again soon. Our responsibility is to our clients first, so this is considered non-productive and may take some time yet. Please be patient or ask us to email the database. We’ve sent a printout to the FTC, but the Administration and the FTC are pretty dead the next few years.
Windows Vista - Is it a Solution?
Saturday, October 22nd, 2005Windows Vista should be available as Microsoft’s new operating system by Christmas, 2006. The development name at Microsoft has been Longhorn (or Longwait, as it’s affectionately called). What does this mean for a user? Should you wait on buying a computer or buy now? If buying now, what should be in the specs?
First, let’s define an operating system. Basically, an operating system is the supervisor or manager of the computer. It has control of all the resources of the computer. If a program wants memory, it tells the operating system and the OS reserves it for the program. Every key click, every request for a monitor display, and every print request goes to the OS first and is then prioritized and permitted under the security of the OS. To do that, the OS must be in memory all the time with your program and the processor must be fast enough to handle the request along with other work it is doing. The computer should never crash, as it is always under the control of the OS.
All those Windows versions through Windows 98 (Extended and Millennium included) were not operating systems. Memory was too expensive and processors too slow to support this. The fact that Microsoft called them that did not make them that. Windows NT was Microsoft’s first attempt at a real operating system. Windows 2000 was next. Windows XP was the first Microsoft operating system that was really designed for the desktop.
Now my Windows 2000 has to be rebooted once a day. I have antivirus, software and hardware firewalls, anti-spyware, SystemWorks - you name it - they are all on there. And it isn’t just me. I have two clients with systems a few years old with the same problem. The solution is to reformat the disk and reload everything. Then everything works for about two years. It could be hardware, Windows eating itself, or undetectable malware, but the problem is there. These two clients are solving the problem by purchasing new systems.
I would never use any version of Windows at the present time as a server to host web sites. Too unreliable. Microsoft knows this. The better web site servers use something like Linux. The hosting we sell uses Linux. Microsoft sees this as very serious competition. For this reason, the major changes you will see in Vista are not that visible. They are below sea level (pardon the pun). They have to do with security. Many promised features for Vista are delayed on purpose so that Microsoft can release what they hope to be their most secure system ever. Whatever that means. If you upgrade to this, you are (at least theoretically) buying security. You will at least have much better security. There is no way to have perfect security.
One feature that will be there - the new 3D interface - is really great. If you want that and are buying a computer now, you will need a 3D graphics accelerator that supports DirectX9 with AGP 8X or PCI Express 8X and at least 64MB of RAM. Otherwise, Vista will revert back to a legacy mode that is called Classic and look like traditional Windows.
Other questions on Vista are still unanswered. Is it really secure? Will it work with all my existing programs (don’t plan it working with a lot of utilities that interface directly with the disk)? Will it work with my existing hardware if I upgrade the video? At the present time, only the first beta is out for testing.
More later….
—————————————-
P.S. - As to my problem with Windows 2000, a friend gave me an interesting possibility. Maybe he was kidding, but it is a good laugh. The problem was there in the IBM mainframes of the seventies. As the disk spins, he told me, centrifugal forces will force the magnetic particles on the disk outward, eventually causing some alignment problems with the head. When you reformat the disk to rebuild the system, you are defining the tracks and sectors on the disk again relative to the head position. Whatever. My response is that the OS should be able to detect any deterioration in the disk performance and let me know if something is beginning to happen. The OS should never release control of the hardware unless there is a massive hardware failure. On my Dell system, a hidden program in the BIOS chip can test the hard disk if the diagnostic disk fails to start.