One thing this thread has confirmed is that there is no small amount of reluctance in having to use Vista over other operating systems. What's disturbing to me is how the pc companies caved in to Microsoft by discontinuing to offer any XP support to the customers who still wanted it.

I chose to remove Vista from my Toshiba laptop and it was a lot of trouble to get all the XP drivers I needed from here and there on the net because Toshiba didn't offer any XP drivers at all for my model.

I can't imagine why Toshiba or any other pc manufacturer should have cared one way or another except that they were in collusion with Microsoft to force Vista down everyone's throats. I'm sure Microsoft gave them generous financial incentives to do so.

I will remember this about Toshiba when I'm considering my next computer purchase.

• Rick

Attached Link: http://www.osnews.com/story.php/18309/Windows-7-Preventing-Another-Vista-esque-Development-Process/

Another:

http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/windows_7.asp

Richarbri you might find Driver Genius useful, it's saved me many long nights of fruitless searching http://www.driver-soft.com/

Thanks man, that does look like an interesting program :)

It always makes me laugh when I see people getting upset because programs like Poser aren't made for Linux...the chances of that happening are near zero...and with good reason.
Firstly, if you start to produce a software for Linux that is available to the masses, people like e-Frontier would have to up the price of the software ten fold to just cover support costs of every Tom, Dick and Harriet who purchased it to cover the support with their distro.
Lets face it, if a person wouldn't touch the Windows registry without getting into a sweat, they sure as hell wouldn't have a clue on how to manually install a graphics driver (anybody who uses an older ATI Mobility card with Linux will know what I''m talking about).
I can almost be certain that the cost of developing a Linux Poser would never recoup it's cost compared to the amount of people that would use it.

Now, I've used Vista for about 6 months and can't remember a crash...and you will start to find that games and software (3DS Max 2008 is such a program) will support DirectX 10...which is only available from Vista...and believe me DirectX 10 kicks OpenGL 2 into the shade on many points.

And before people say that I'm a Linux basher...well I've used Linux for years, shader programming for Renderman based renders....and though it is a great OS, it's pluses are also it's faults.

This is the sort of thing that gives me pause about Vista -- people seem to either love it or hate it: with the "hate its" being somewhat more numerous & more persistent than in past times, dealing with past OS releases.

As I've indicated earlier in this thread: I understand fully that, realistically speaking, the vast majority of users will eventually have to go with whatever Microsoft cares to spoon-feed to us........in spite of the hopes & dreams of anti-MS types.  Linux and/or OSX overtake Windows on PC's?  Not terribly likely.  Sure -- anything's possible down the road.  But I wouldn't bet that way.

So I'll eventually end up with Vista, or maybe with Windows 7 (or whatever they call it when it hits the market).  The difference being that unlike my experience with previous incarnations of Microsoft's OS releases -- it'll probably be awhile before I head that way.

I can understand your point of view Xenophonz....but OS X (or Apple) isn't the holy grail either.
MS get some bad rap about DRM (lets face it, their hand has been forced somewhat by content creators), but Apple are no better either.
In fact Apple have just a monoply over how people have to use their software, as MS do...if not more so.

Oh, I'm not a Mac partisan by any stretch of the imagination -- I'm not even a Mac user.  I recognize that it's a fine system, but I also recognize that it represents a tiny element of the overall PC market (sorry Mac folks -- but that's just the way that it is).

For my own work and for the sake of compatibility -- I pretty much have to stick with MS.  By no means am I saying that I agree with everything that Microsoft does: I'm just recognizing the practical realities of the situation.  I don't either love or hate Microsoft.  The company is just a toolmaker, and it happens to dominate the market.  So.......when it comes to PC's, if you need to have near 100% compatibility with 90-some-odd percent (or more) of the rest of the world: then Microsoft it is.

It is what it is.  I can't go some other way without a lot of unnecessary extra effort & work-arounds on my part.  Why should I spend many hours fighting, trying to get something to work in Linux, when I can just pop the program installation into my MS machine and away I go?  The only reason that I can see is an emotional dislike of Microsoft -- and that's never been a good reason to do something or to not do something when it comes to PC's.

*'For my own work and for the sake of compatibility -- I pretty much have to stick with MS. '

That's always been the case with me too and it's why MS enjoys the lionshare of the OS market. Why move to another platform when the one you've been using has worked well enough for you for years?

I was surprsied though that MS didn't seem to care much about the backward compatibility of Vista. Max 8 does run on Vista but the mental ray renderer won't. No version of Autocad will work with Vista and that's a real shocker. With too many apps it's a hit or miss proposition if they will even install under Vista yet alone fully work. Combined with the excessive statrtup and shutdown times I really have to wonder what MS was thinking with this release.

As I mentioned earlier though, the graphics enhancements are very nice and I think that many people who use their PCs mainly for office work won't mind the change at all. I'll bet the bulk of the complaints are coming from people who have special purpose use for their computers and they know exactly how they want their computers to work :)

It's too bad there isn't more software support for Linux though. I don't know what the threshold number of users would have to be to make supporting it a viable choice for all software vendors. From what you read, it seems the number of Linux users is growng and is substantial. Until I see Linux support for the apps I run I can't see myself using it for anything other than experimenting with a new OS :)

• Rick

Quote -
In fact Apple have just a monoply over how people have to use their software, as MS do...if not more so.

Umm, no they don't.

Seriously, they do not.

I'm very sure that Apple goes out of their way to maximize flexibility for the user that wants it.

You can even code all you want to on it for free. $0.00

--

Oh, the reason why I stopped by...

Just a gentle reminder if you use Vista:  Don't be in any hurry to update your video drivers. You may get bit with WGA deactivating your machine if you do.

/P

We've got 3 pc's in the house here, mine dual boots XP & Ubuntu, 1 is pure XP & the other is pure Vista, none of them have problems at the moment but after what you posted pengy I'll be watching the vista machine much more closely.

Quote - > Quote -

In fact Apple have just a monoply over how people have to use their software, as MS do...if not more so.

Umm, no they don't.

Seriously, they do not.

I'm very sure that Apple goes out of their way to maximize flexibility for the user that wants it.

You can even code all you want to on it for free. $0.00

--

Oh, the reason why I stopped by...

Just a gentle reminder if you use Vista:  Don't be in any hurry to update your video drivers. You may get bit with WGA deactivating your machine if you do.

/P

Oh, I think I'll try OS X...oh, that's right, I can't without forking out at least £800 for some hardware....just one example of monoply.

In all fairness I like OS X (I have a MacBook Pro), but it goes without saying that to use OSX takes much more outlay per person than it does to use windows. The whole reason why OS X is cheaper is because costs can be lost within the hardware needed to run it.

I posted a link earlier about the OSX-x86 project... if you have legit install disks (yes, you can buy them), you can load them onto any Intel-based machine that has the SSE2 and better instruction set. The link has details as to how. You are absolutely correct in that it costs a bit more up-front for a Mac, but part-for-part, the prices are almost the same or better than a similarly-rigged Dell or HP. Also, the costs amortize better over the long run than generic PC's do - for example I still use a dual G5 that I bought used in 2004... it runs just fine, and by the time I finally start looking to get a new one for compatibility reasons (say, a year from now, though two would be mroe likely), the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for me will be roughly $400/year (assuming I replace it next year sometime). I spend way more than that on ciggies, and it represents only 1/3 of what I spend on cable television + internet connection. By contrast, a similarly-equipped Dell or HP would cost just about as much ($2000), but Vista simply will not run on most 3-year-old machines now, so I would've had to buy a new one anyway. 3 years later, same story. The funny thing is, I can buy a Mac Mini right now for $600, get $200 worth of extra RAM for it, and it would last just as long - bringing TCO down to $200/yr for a similar four-year-period. /P

Heh......interesting to note that the page for the Vista shutdown article also has a link to a "Why I quit Linux" article about a former Linux kernel developer --

http://apcmag.com/node/6735/

That one makes for a good read, too.

Of course I can't be dogmatic about this, but I get the feeling that Vista as we currently know it won't be the 'latest 'n greatest' OS from MS for very long.  It'll likely be quickly (2 years, maybe?) replaced by MS with something else.

In the meantime, let's all switch to OSX and solve all of our computing problems.........:sneaky:.

I think that I'll ride out this storm for awhile -- sitting in my XP lifeboat for a bit and waiting to see what happens.  It wouldn't have been a good idea to buy a betamax machine back in the day, either.  Sure: it was better than VHS, but Sony made the critical error of monopolizing the format in an attempt to force everyone to come to them.  Such attempts rarely work: with Microsoft being a glaring exception.  Even IBM lost the battle, due -- in part -- to an inability to predict the future (an ability which Bill Gates apparently had), coupled with old-fashioned ideas about mainframes being the end-all of computing, while the new PC's were regarded as mere toys.

Microsoft: you will be assimilated.......resistance is futile..........

Meh - one is an article about a guy who got his ego bitten off (kernel.org's mailing list is not for the feint-of-heart; participate at your peril), and the other is about how your OS (if it's Vista) will literally cut you off because it thinks you're a pirate just for updating your video card driver.

Waiting with XP is prolly the best course of action if you have to stick with Windows (just bought a machine, etc)... dunno if MS will be able to keep its market share with Vista driving people elsewhere in droves, though.

The same factor that put MSFT on top (the computer comes with the OS), may be what kills it. Folks are seeing how dog-bad Vista can get (I'm sure that it runs well in many cases, though), and decide to look somewhere else. Apple just posted one hell of a record quarterly report for growth, at a time of year when normally things are kind of slow. They report that they sold more Macs in Q3 2007 than they ever had in any other fiscal quarter... in their entire history. Q2 2007 held the previous record for Macs sold, and Q1 before that. In short, their growth is explosive. Meanwhile, Vista's growth is being kept in life support by dint of having it pre-installed on new OEM machines, with no indication as to how many of those got flushed and replaced with XP or even Ubuntu (which is also experiencing some rather exponential growth).

The scary part is, I don't really see anyone here @ work in any hurry to push Vista out, either... and I've only seen about 5-10 Vista machines total in a building that houses ~600 user computers (desktops/laptops).

/P

Ya know.......I believe that the current Holy Grail for commercial OS developer types involves two issues: security and anti-piracy......two issues which in a way represent mutually contradictory motivators.  To keep out hackers you install all sorts of system-resource-sapping & annoying failsafes; and then to keep an eye on end-users to be sure that they aren't ripping music and / or movies to hand out to their buddies (or to sell) -- you include all sorts of backdoors & built-in spying mechanisms.  Mechanisms which, of course, smart hackers will quickly figure out ways to exploit.

You can't win.  Do your computing on an abacus.

'... dunno if MS will be able to keep its market share with Vista driving people elsewhere in droves, though.'

Yeah, that's what makes me wonder what MS was thinking of when they released Vista. Even if it's true that MS is the 'Evil Empire' that others claim it is - you'd think they'd have some interest in their own survival  :)

Quote - You can't win.  Do your computing on an abacus.

Ah, but you can... choose an OS that doesn't care to dig into your business. OSX, Linux, FreeBSD... there's at least three right there, and they've always taken security seriously. Now considering the catch-22 of "not enough market share to code for" that 3d companies like to take, OSX is prolly your best bet for awhile, unless you really like hacking your OS to get the Windows versions running under WINE/Cedega/cxoffice.

Well.......if your #1 priority is to keep the Microsoft Borg from spying on you -- or if your priorities involve other "speciality" reasons --  then you go with some other OS besides Windows.  But if your main priority is, of necessity, compatibility with your clients or whatever -- then MS is pretty much your only choice by default.  Or at least it's that way right now.  Even if MS eventually loses its current tight stranglehold on the desktop OS market (which is unlikely): then it'll be a lengthy process.  It won't happen overnight.

But under current circumstances: some of us have an option.  Our choice lies between Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Windows XP.

It's all Bill Gates' fault.

That's the funny thing - my #1 priority depends on where I'm at: At home, that would be a machine that runs with a minimum of fuss and care, one that can go for years once I set it up. I have zero problems with compatibility... my Linux server handles the backups automatically frm all machines (Bacula), the missus can save things wirelessly to her Windows-based network drive (Samba), and thanks to NFS, I have faster transfer rates to that same share (as well as others)... from the Mac. She uses XP because she actually likes using it. No biggie, though I keep her laptop backed up weekly for that reason. At work, priority #1 is uptime and availability, which is why Linux is on all but two servers that I care for (I have quie a few racks stuffed with these). Close behind that is efficiency - if my codemonkeys couldn't get to what they need in a no-fuss rapid way (SVN code repositories, home directories, common build libs, etc), I would have problems. Sharing the #2 slot is compatibility - we use (and have) clients with Linux (various distros), XP, and OSX. Oh, and all those hardware devices that we build (down to the chips themselves), code for, and test. It's only Gates' fault if you let it be Gates' fault. My Mac has VirtualPC with an old Win2k install on it for the one-or-two proggies that have no equivalent elsewhere (mostly because they aren't being maintained anymore). That instance has zero networking in it, and I'll probably relcaim the space here pretty soon. /P