Windows Vista

[jtwh20]

I think Vista will be a success, as it has no real competition. (i can hear the groans now).

 

OSX - only (legally) runs on Apple hardware, which is still mighty pricey (yes the mini is low cost, but BYODKM).

 

Linux - yes i love Ubuntu and Mepis as much as the next guy, but the little old lady in Kansas will use Vista because thats what came on her PC.

 

We are hackers and tweakers - most people are not, and are happy with whatever the hardware manufacturer chose to install for them.

 

Microsoft has the advantage (or disadvantage) of being placed on every PC worldwide by the PC companies. No other OS has this advantage.

 

When you walk into Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA the banners on the wall tout low cost PC's being Vista ready.

[loukaniko]

sadly thats true, but I wish it wasn't.

[br0adband]

I think Vista will be a success, as it has no real competition. (i can hear the groans now).

 

OSX - only (legally) runs on Apple hardware, which is still mighty pricey (yes the mini is low cost, but BYODKM).

 

Linux - yes i love Ubuntu and Mepis as much as the next guy, but the little old lady in Kansas will use Vista because thats what came on her PC.

 

We are hackers and tweakers - most people are not, and are happy with whatever the hardware manufacturer chose to install for them.

 

Microsoft has the advantage (or disadvantage) of being placed on every PC worldwide by the PC companies. No other OS has this advantage.

 

When you walk into Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA the banners on the wall tout low cost PC's being Vista ready.

 

Point 1: The advantage that Microsoft has nowadays and is a distinct disadvantage with regards to Apple - meaning the low market penetration and popularity as compared to Windows - is Apple's fault for holding on for dear life to being a proprietary platform, period. No one else is to blame for Apple's low market share than Apple itself.

 

Point 2: The little old lady uses Windows because it's what's on her PC, that's true, but nothing is to stop her from being less ignorant and learning something new except herself. That's not Microsoft's fault. Linux distros like Ubuntu and Mepis and others are helping to make Linux distros more "friendly" but it's still light years from becoming an accepted desktop OS compared to Windows - see point 1 above.

 

Point 3: Being that Point 1 is true, that allows Apple to maintain a stranglehold on their products and pricing. Since there's no one else helping out to front the costs - meaning other OEMs licensed to build Apple hardware - they're going to charge an arm and a leg for it. A lot of that goes into the support for Apple hardware - which is really funny since if it's such a great machine, why would someone need support?

 

Point 3 is "The Tommy Boy Syndrome." If you've never seen the movie, it's about an overweight loser son that makes good on his father's reputation by helping to save a factory that makes automotive parts. At one point in the movie, he needs to sell a huge order of certain parts to someone that simply isn't buying because the competitor's product has a guarantee printed on the side of the box. "Tommy Boy" argues the point that if the competitor's product is that good, why would it need a guarantee in the first place?

 

Same issue with Apple. If they're such good machines, and such awesome uncrashable (yeah right) hardware, why bother charging people for AppleCare at all? Why not just say "You buy this from us, and we'll take care of you. We're already charging a premium price for the same exact components in most generic PCs, so if for some strange reason you do end up having a problem, we will take care of you because you're loyal to us and that means more than the bottom line."

 

Simple thing really. Companies lose sight of the fact that the customers and keeping them happy and satisfied is the real bottom line, not how much money they can rake in.

 

Apple lost sight of that so long ago it's not even funny.

 

I've owned 4 Macs in 2 months recently. I had issues with each of them, from software issues, programs crashing, hardware issues, reboot issues, heat and thermal issues, hard drive issues, etc. I won't buy another one, I can tell you that. And yes, I know that means I'm in the minority overall - but I'm one of the people that actually speaks out about it.

 

How many people own Macs and never speak up when a program crashes, or an update fails, or it locks up, or... you figure it out.

 

Apple writes a proprietary operating system for a proprietary hardware platform and still can't get it right (speaking from hands on experience here). Microsoft writes an operating system that is designed to work on a nearly infinite variety of hardware - and software - combinations, and "It just works..."

 

Go figure.

 

You wanna know what my biggest gripe with these kinds of postings is? Microsoft isn't in competition with Apple - and vice versa - for two reasons:

 

1) Microsoft doesn't make computers.

 

2) Apple doesn't sell their OSes for generic PCs.

 

Once you figure that little tidbit out, you realize most "Apple vs Microsoft" debates or arguments are moot from the gitgo.

 

Amazing...

 

bb

[joe75]

Excellent post, br0adband, you hit the nail right on the head

[br0adband]

I sold a laptop to someone the other day that's been a Mac owner for 3 years now, and he's about to move to Leopard when it's released and buy himself a brand new Intel based Mac when it's out - currently uses a 17" PPC iMac from what he said.

 

I talked about my experience with Macs when he was here to demo the laptop and he almost cringed at my comments, and I knew he desperately wanted to say "I don't have those problems," so I opened the door for him (figuratively speaking) and gave him a chance to either speak up or clam up.

 

And boy he went off, exactly as I knew he would. Complaints about all the "annoyances" he's experienced since "switching" to OSX over the past 3 years, how it was hard at first but he eventually got the hang of it - but he said several times that "Windows wasn't that hard to learn" meaning his original experience with using a Windows based PC was easier to get situated and using.

 

He's had issues with software crashing, locking up, had kernel panics, printer issues, networking issues, etc. And I could discount his comments as a n00b and just move along - but the guy knows computers. He demonstrated his knowledge with how swiftly he operated the laptop I was selling - it has XP Home on it - and he was zipping around doing the same kinds of tests and looking at the hardware info that I would if I were going to buy a used laptop - and I've been at this for over 3 decades.

 

In the past I've met a few people that owned Macs - remember, they are seriously in the minority - and for the first time ever on Thursday morning I actually met someone in public that was using a Mac. I almost fainted, I swear. A cute brunette was using the free Wi-Fi with her white MacBook at Krispy Kreme in downtown Las Vegas here when I popped in yesterday morning for doughtnuts for the Wife and I.

 

And I go over near the UNLV campus on a pseudo-regular basis to the public library that's practically on the campus itself. I just don't see people with Macs, or even iPods, weird as that sounds, even in this college town with two Apple Stores, go figure that one out. Maybe people realize they're getting reamed on the pricing with Apple hardware and are just too damned scared to take it out in public, who knows.

 

I just picked up a Gateway MX6931 Core 2 Duo laptop about a month ago and I'm very very satisfied with it. I can even install JaS' 10.4.7 release on it and most everything works except audio - the GMA950 is recognized and I can watch DVDs, etc. The Yukon NIC works too... but no audio, and because it's got a crappy Sigmatel audio chip on it I can pretty much forget it ever working with OSX, unfortunately. Kinda wish I could but... them's the breaks.

 

I'm currently running Vista Ultimate 64, and I'll be getting Home Premium for free soon enough I suppose. Gateway doesn't even charge for shipping & handling for the Express Upgrade kit like all the other manufacturers do, so this upgrade really is "free." And I've got Business coming for "free" because of that PowerTogether website deal a few weeks back I got in on.

 

I have no issues with Vista, even the 64 bit version, with 100% hardware support.

 

"It just works..."

 

bb

[Dragon]

XP has a good feature/performance ratio which makes it just right for businesses and home users. Vista to me just seems bloated from microsofts attempt to create an "eye-candy" interface similar to Mac OS X.

[pyrates]

XP has a good feature/performance ratio which makes it just right for businesses and home users. Vista to me just seems bloated from microsofts attempt to create an "eye-candy" interface similar to Mac OS X.

 

So vista "seems" to you bloated and full of eye candy? Have you tried vista out yourself yet? I would guess no since it is not available for the general public yet.

[pyrates]

It is poor compared to os x. And why didn't they included paint dotnet.

 

AntiTrust reasons perhaps. Remember Apple is an OS Maker AND an OEM at the same time. So it can include applications like that. Microsoft has to tread very carefully when it does stuff like that. But you can easily download it. It is a free download. When did your OS have to include every single application you were going to use ever?

 

As I wrote, I have an editor in the house, who is currently allowed to use it for review puroposes.

 

Well good for you then. But do remember this, there is a reason why consumers won't get it till January 30, 2007. So that application makers and device drivers can get all caught up for it. It's stable for me so far I must say.

 

It will probably say the two sentences: A not identified software tries to access your puter. Accept?/Deny?

 

Oh silly silly boy. You're now guessing why it brought that up? Fine then, do a translation of it on WHY it was brought up. You really are getting pathetic here when you gotta guess on why it was brought up. It tells you why right there, now translate it properly and tell us all what it says.

 

The 99 is the system-builder-version.

 

Nope, the version that most pc's will come with is the home premium version. Since right now Windows XP Media Centre Edition is the most popular version that is put on pc's right now, that is what Home Premium is replacing. Go ahead and find me a pc oem that only comes with windows xp home edition instead of windows xp media centre edition and you will clearly see that the ones that come with windows xp home are clearly in the minority.

 

Man. It's on the site. Click on the "I can't sign in" and it will tell you why you can't sign in

 

Actually I did find exactly where you had gotten that quote from. Now you said that people had to be signed in to download and install windows gadgets, that there was an outright lie. The sign in portion is for the OPTIONS part of the website. That is ALL it is for. You do NOT have to sign in to browse and download/install gadgets for windows vista. I've done it several times without having to put in a windows live id at all. You still insist that you gotta have a windows live id now to download and install gadgets? I sure hope not, because unless you WANT to use the OPTIONS portion of that website, no windows live id is needed.

 

You have feelings for me? I don't get it. i wrote that vista looks good and feels good. And you call me a fanboy You even think that Paint is a badass software due to new added jpg support. Now aren't we not all a little bit fanboys?

 

I was wrong actually. JPG support was there in windows 2000. What they did add was png support. If you want more, go download paint.net. Or one of the many more applications that you can get out there because of the vast amount of software for windows that is available.

 

You know, I think there are some more ppl out there who dislike Vista for several reasons. I just wrote about what did not worked here. I don't care if it may worked for you, because I don't use your machine. You can be sure, there will be a lot more things that will not work and just because they bug, they are not automatically a lie.

 

Your criticisms are always welcome. But lying about something to make it look bad never helps.

 

And yes, of course is Vista a kind of OS X copypaste. But this is a compliment for Apple. If it wouldn't be good they wouldn't have copied it. And also, it is a pluspoint for Microsoft, because they show that they wanted to make it even better than XP.

 

Just like apple has copied other stuff that was in other pieces of software. But I won't get into that here. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

 

And to UAC: Yes it is a good thing. But the difference is that OS X doesn't nag me if I want to copy a shortcut in my Program Files folder. Why? Just because it would nag me, if a program wants to do some system relevant access. Windows isn't able to differ between that, thats why it nags everything. And I don't have to sign in as an admin in OS X to get rid of that.

 

The program files folder in Windows would be equivalent to the applications folder in OS X. And when you try to copy anything or delete anything in there or manipulate anything in there besides running it, it asks you for administrative access. In other words, OS X DOES THE SAME THING. The program files folder is the central folder that applications are installed into. Any write access to it needs administrative privileges. Now you're just getting desperate here. I know this because I have used OS X before. And that is exactly what it does.

 

Cheeta, Panther, Tiger, Jaguar... dunno. Tiger is 105€ here. I don't know how much an upgrade would cost, but in case of doubt I would say it is cheaper. But even 4x105 is not as much as for Ultimate. And you can compare the iLife things to the bundled software that comes with ultimate.

 

Well I got the cost for you right here. It is £249.99, coming from here. And that is for the upgrade for windows vista ultimate. So it is still cheaper then OS X's 3 upgrades within the past 5 years. I was wrong there was 4, only 3 so far. There is only 4 if you count 10.5 coming out in the spring.

 

But... at the end, I really don't care. I think Vista is an ok OS, but it will not get my main OS as it seems by now. And if they would have managed it, that a hanging explorer just closes the instance and not hang on every related process, I would have had a better impression of vista. Also I find it poor from Microsoft, that they not had so much own new ideas to show. I think this is because of the pressure in this company where the employees imply may not get creative. And that they made a difference in the gui. That was not necessary, especially for the kids with less money.

 

For me it is a welcome upgrade that was definitely needed. And it will become my main OS because I'm now able to run as a regular user just like you can do in Mac OS X. And just because you don't use a particular feature in an OS, doesn't mean that the feature is entirely worthless to everyone.

 

The GUI was designed in such a way to be productive. Not do every fancy animation on the planet. It was found out that adding all that to it wouldn't make someone any more productive so they did enough in it in my opinion. Kids with less money you say? I've already shown you why Windows Vista Ultimate is still cheaper then OS X overall, so why don't you complain to Apple about their upgrade prices? I'd like to see that now.

 

correction: corrected the number of os x upgrades released to 3 instead of 4, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4.

Edited December 25, 2006 by pyrates

[br0adband]

pyrates:

 

Outstanding post.

 

bb

[rollcage]

The program files folder in Windows would be equivalent to the applications folder in OS X. And when you try to copy anything or delete anything in there or manipulate anything in there besides running it, it asks you for administrative access. In other words, OS X DOES THE SAME THING. The program files folder is the central folder that applications are installed into. Any write access to it needs administrative privileges.

 

i think the point that he was trying to make was that UAC gets annoying when it asks to delete a shorcut for a program on your desktop (even when logged on as an admin). OSX only requires passwords when logged in as a limited user to uninstall, and only for installing programs when logged in as an admin (you can moved and unintall all you want).

 

i get what MS was trying to do with UAC, i think it's great and should have been added a long time ago, but they still have a few annoyances that need to be worked out.

 

i'll definitely be using vista, maybe not as my main os, but i'll definitely be using it (if nothing else but for curiousity). my only real problem with it is that it is a killer on resources, osx and leopard (even as a beta) seem much quicker.

 

and i don't like the argument on price. MS should have updated windows a lot sooner, but now they're charging a hell of a lot for the all-in-one version. osx comes with everything, iLife included, for a little over $100. and we know that it's going to be way ahead of vista, cause vista pretty much just caught up with osx.

 

i feel like i've bashed on vista a little too much, so here's what i do like about it:

 

it searches the internet for the newest drivers for my hardware, stuff that i've just plugged in. Aero is cool looking, there's no denying (even if it is a resource hog (50 mb of ram!). the start menu and instant search are great. ie7 makes me feel a lot more secure (even more than FF). they've finally updated the built-in games

 

take it for what it is, i like both os's for different reasons. i'm a double-sided fanboy

Edited December 25, 2006 by rollcage

[pyrates]

i think the point that he was trying to make was that UAC gets annoying when it asks to delete a shorcut for a program on your desktop (even when logged on as an admin). OSX only requires passwords when logged in as a limited user to uninstall, and only for installing programs when logged in as an admin (you can moved and unintall all you want).

 

i get what MS was trying to do with UAC, i think it's great and should have been added a long time ago, but they still have a few annoyances that need to be worked out.

 

i'll definitely be using vista, maybe not as my main os, but i'll definitely be using it (if nothing else but for curiousity). my only real problem with it is that it is a killer on resources, osx and leopard (even as a beta) seem much quicker.

 

and i don't like the argument on price. MS should have updated windows a lot sooner, but now they're charging a hell of a lot for the all-in-one version. osx comes with everything, iLife included, for a little over $100. and we know that it's going to be way ahead of vista, cause vista pretty much just caught up with osx.

 

i feel like i've bashed on vista a little too much, so here's what i do like about it:

 

it searches the internet for the newest drivers for my hardware, stuff that i've just plugged in. Aero is cool looking, there's no denying (even if it is a resource hog (50 mb of ram!). the start menu and instant search are great. ie7 makes me feel a lot more secure (even more than FF). they've finally updated the built-in games

 

take it for what it is, i like both os's for different reasons. i'm a double-sided fanboy

 

First I was wrong, there was 3 mac releases of OS X. 10.0 and 10.1 don't count because they were free and came with the mac you buy. But still, when put together, and this will be including the price of 10.5 coming out, yes they are more expensive. Plus we all know apple likes to release a new OS every year. OS X 10.5 is just an exception. I remember they use to have a new one out every 6 months. Which is why I like windows. Major release every 2-3 years or so. Just like OS X 10.5 is the exception, so is vista. Mac OS X 10.5 could easily have scrapped plenty of features early on just like windows vista did. That information just isn't public compared to windows vista's development. Compared to Apple, Microsoft's development cycle is very open.

 

Two things that Apple is VERY good at is PR and Marketing. And the reason for that is because the fan boys help with it. For example, the recent javascript exploit in quicktime being used to send myspace users to a spoofed myspace page to get their login and password, one of the fan boys tried to make it look like it was myspace's fault for allowing people to upload quicktime encoded videos. When this same kind of issue had occurred with flash 8, hence why myspace immediately required an upgrade to flash 9 for all its users. And this got on the frontpage of digg because plenty of other fan boys believed it.

 

Now as for the reason that you need administrative privaleges is because some programs put the programs files in the programs folder directory as well as the windows directory, so yes they do need it. The desktop shortcut needing that, is because it is in the all users desktop folder and that needs administrative privileges because it effects all the users, not just yours. Same thing with the start menu's programs folder, it effects all users, not just yours. Now because there is a start menu's program folder just for your user, same thing with the desktop folder just for your user, that wouldn't need administrative privileges. And all this gets combined of course. But when you create something manually on the desktop folder or save something to their, it will save it to your users desktop folder. This all comes back from the way multiple users are setup on windows, thats all and it is a bit clunky, but works for me once you understand it all.

 

And even though in OS X you can just drag and drop an install in the trash, if it is in the applications directory, then yes it will ask you for the root password. But all installations in windows need administrative privilages unless you just manually run a program without installing it, which some programs I do use are that way. The reason for administrative privaleges when installing in windows, is because the program is installed for all users, not just yours. Hence it effects all users, not just yours. Make sense?

 

And you say 50 MB is alot for the gui to use when it's using aero glass? Well how much does OS X use compared to when it doesn't use the graphics card to do hardware acceleration? When you can tell me that, then come back and we'll see which one users more. And if you don't recall, OS X before it had hardware acceleration, was incredibly slow. It had no option to turn it all off. It was all or nothing. All because the gui had to have eye candy. At least in windows vista you can turn it off. Now you say in OS X all mac's come with a video card that is capable of that, that is true of course with on board video card makers now too. The only ones it's not capable of is the older ones and hence why Microsoft had to include the gui without the aero glass in it with reasonable performance. But not with OS X, even if the video card can't handle it, the eye candy has to be their. Not a basic version that has some good performance in it.

 

And vista is definitely a good upgrade for me. I like the changes in the GUI, UAC, instant search, being able to use the scroll wheel in the start menu with all programs, aero glass too of course because it can finally use my graphics card which was only $50 to get, plus the imaging features too. IE 7 isn't that big a deal to me, I prefer Firefox more cause of the extensions I can get for it. I like how it uses your free ram to cache files in memory for you. That is definitely a good feature to have, makes windows more responsive. And if a program needs it, it gets it right away.

 

The only thing I don't like about vista is that if you are running as a user that is a member of the administrators group, it just asks you to continue instead of for your password to do administrative stuff because beta testers who were use to doing whatever they wanted in windows without being asked for their permissions, said it was a bad idea. So their was a compromise done. I wish Microsoft hadn't done that. At least in OS X it will ask you, though that isn't perfect. So in either OS, it's always better to run as a regular user. It's now how I run vista. I recommend everyone do that.

 

And I do like it when it takes over your screen to ask you for the administrative password, no other distractions then. It's what you gotta do. And if you notice in OS X, it does the same thing. You can't click anywhere else unless you've clicked on cancel or put in the correct password. But correct me if I'm wrong.

 

And I do like the built in games as well being updated.

[macgirl]

I didn't read this thread but fond this from another Forum

[rollcage]

I didn't read this thread but fond this from another Forum

 

I saw this before. I have no problem with the gadgets and search, but I think that Windows Calendar and Mail are a bit too close to their OSX counterparts. Other than a couple changes to the basic UI, they look almost exactly the same.

[Soündless]

I think Windows Vista will be a big failure and Bill knows it will be, too. He left Microsoft before Vista was release because he didn't want to take most of the blame when Vista turns out to be less stable and more buggier than Win 98 was. I predict that Vista will fail, and when it doesn, Apple will take it's marketshare, and all will be good.

win 98 was halfway decent, i believe that vista will be ahead for a while if released before leopard. but once leopard comes along, it will crash and burn.

[pyrates]

I didn't read this thread but fond this from another Forum

 

ah yes I saw this too. There's just some problems with it. Such as OS X's use of widgets being copied from the konfabulator program. The calendar, how different can you make a calendar look? You can't really do all that much with it, so they're just reaching for straws here. The instant search? That was announced back in the PDC 2003 before 10.4 had it. All Apple did was get it to market first. There is also the user switching in windows xp, Apple later on added it to OS X.

 

For me, I say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

 

win 98 was halfway decent, i believe that vista will be ahead for a while if released before leopard. but once leopard comes along, it will crash and burn.

 

People always say this when a new version of windows comes along. The linux users say the same thing too. Face it, it's not gonna happen. Not until Apple gives up its stranglehold on the mac hardware business. But Apple is happy with the profits it makes in the hardware side, so that is that. The pc market is much more diverse compared to what the mac fan boys think it is. There is virtually no video card market for gamers on the mac side, not true with the pc side. And that is only one aspect of it.

[Alessandro17]

I've owned 4 Macs in 2 months recently. I had issues with each of them, from software issues, programs crashing, hardware issues, reboot issues, heat and thermal issues, hard drive issues, etc. I won't buy another one, I can tell you that. And yes, I know that means I'm in the minority overall - but I'm one of the people that actually speaks out about it.

 

I run OS X on a hackintosh and I have hardly any problems. Of course many of the issues you mention are hardware related. So could it be that my hardware is better than a real Mac? (in fact it is possible, because I chose the best, to the best of my knowledge).

 

Besides OS X runs very smooth and fast, while XP is slow, bloated and grinding my HDs most of the time.

 

As to Vista, I have it in another partition. I hardly ever use it: it is not much better than XP as an OS (except for the eye candy, which personally I find bad taste), but many of the programs which cause me to boot into XP are not compatible or barely compatible.

[pyrates]

I run OS X on a hackintosh and I have hardly any problems. Of course many of the issues you mention are hardware related. So could it be that my hardware is better than a real Mac? (in fact it is possible, because I chose the best, to the best of my knowledge).

 

Besides OS X runs very smooth and fast, while XP is slow, bloated and grinding my HDs most of the time.

 

As to Vista, I have it in another partition. I hardly ever use it: it is not much better than XP as an OS (except for the eye candy, which personally I find bad taste), but many of the programs which cause me to boot into XP are not compatible or barely compatible.

 

 

May I ask how old your XP installation is and did you ever clear if of spyware perhaps? Also what are the specs to your hackintosh. How much RAM you have would be a big help as well.

 

edit: took out the prefetch thing as I just found out it's a myth so ignore that. But what is also a myth is these registry cleaners. They do more harm then good. Don't use em.

Edited January 4, 2007 by pyrates

[Alessandro17]

May I ask how old your XP installation is and did you ever clear if of spyware perhaps? Also what are the specs to your hackintosh. How much RAM you have would be a big help as well.

 

My XP installation is a couple of months old and it gets very regular maintanance, including registry cleaning.

But it doesn't really matter, because immediately after reinstalling XP and the needed programs, it is just as slow as before.

Some of my hackintosh specs:

 

Mobo: Intel D945GNT

Pentium D 950

4 GB DDR2 RAM, Crucial Ballistix

Ati Radeon X1600XT

Thermaltake Tsunami Dream

Server grade power supply...

 

Maybe I'll try your registry hack (but it is not just about boot time, it is performance overall)

[joe75]

I have no problems with XP and it is still my favorite from Windows

[pyrates]

My XP installation is a couple of months old and it gets very regular maintanance, including registry cleaning.

But it doesn't really matter, because immediately after reinstalling XP and the needed programs, it is just as slow as before.

Some of my hackintosh specs:

 

Mobo: Intel D945GNT

Pentium D 950

4 GB DDR2 RAM, Crucial Ballistix

Ati Radeon X1600XT

Thermaltake Tsunami Dream

Server grade power supply...

 

Maybe I'll try your registry hack (but it is not just about boot time, it is performance overall)

 

I hope you have the swap file off since you got 4 GB of RAM there. Set it to 0 or the disabled option and hit apply, then reboot. Check the C: drive to make sure it's no there and if it is, just delete it. It won't return then.

 

Also turn off the fancy windows animations since that all runs on your cpu and can get quite sluggish if they are on. It's on under system control panel, advance, performance settings. That should definitely help then.

Edited January 4, 2007 by pyrates

[Bartboy919]

I just have one thing to say: DX 10 Baby!

 

[br0adband]

Yanno, up till this moment I had a lot of respect for you, pyrates...

 

The "clear out the prefetch folder" to improve performance thing is a myth, it always has been. And now that last posting with suggestion of turning off the pagefile... ugh. You can't disable the pagefile in Windows; it's a native part of the OS itself, and even though you can seemingly tell Windows not to create one (either by using that "0" setting or the other one that "disables" it completely), Windows will still create one for itself because that's how it works.

 

People associated "pagefile" with "Virtual Memory" and while there are some similar respects, they are not one and the same. The pagefile is just one component of the Virtual Memory subsystem in Windows, it always has been ever since the 386 processor enabled that ability to "swap out" data from physical chip RAM to the hard drive and simulate "virtual memory." It's not something you can just "throw a switch" or click a button and turn off, no matter how many people, websites, FAQs, tuners, tweakers, optimizers, useless software, etc. tries to make you believe you can.

 

It only hurts performance in the long run by tinkering with the pagefile settings in Windows, period.

 

Next thing I know you'll be telling people that 'SuperPrefetch' exists in XP just because some people either saw the key there or decided to add it under XP. Neither of those two tips will have any lasting performance benefits to a Windows XP machine, sorry.

 

bb

[xtraa]

Two things that Apple is VERY good at is PR and Marketing. And the reason for that is because the fan boys help with it. For example, the recent javascript exploit in quicktime being used to send myspace users to a spoofed myspace page to get their login and password, one of the fan boys tried to make it look like it was myspace's fault for allowing people to upload quicktime encoded videos. When this same kind of issue had occurred with flash 8, hence why myspace immediately required an upgrade to flash 9 for all its users. And this got on the frontpage of digg because plenty of other fan boys believed it.

 

Ballmer would give his left egg if MS would be so good at marketing, too. Look how they try to

get people atm with their faked zune fanblogs and viral PR. The whole concept of the zune

Package is now like Apple. They even wrote "Hello from Seattle" on it, like the well known

"Designed in Cupertino California".

 

Guess why they have no fanboys? First you can't compare a hardware company with a software

company. Microsoft did a good job for Apple when they started with Office for Mac. But they don't

know {censored} about hardware. I have never seen the Tablet-PC boom, the Origami, the fun experience

with the MS Sidewinder drivers in XP... After all of their gifts I wonder why there are no fanboys.

The market has its own rules, and so are people. Just because they made the lucky deal of their

life with placing DOS on IBM, it just don't mean that they make outstanding products. Most of the

folks here are on OSX because they are so damn pissed about this company and the behaviour of

their products. I mean they even failed to make an import export function between their own mail-

software clients.

 

Now why is that? I think the reason is because Microsoft was never forced to act like a normal

business because of their moneyprinting machine, the deal from the past. They are on every PC

today, but not because their product is so outstanding, but because they were a lucky bunch of nerds.

Right place, right time.

 

And even though in OS X you can just drag and drop an install in the trash, if it is in the applications directory, then yes it will ask you for the root password.

 

Err.. in OSX? no it won't.

 

When you can tell me that, then come back and we'll see which one users more. And if you don't recall, OS X before it had hardware acceleration, was incredibly slow. It had no option to turn it all off. It was all or nothing. All because the gui had to have eye candy. At least in windows vista you can turn it off. Now you say in OS X all mac's come with a video card that is capable of that, that is true of course with on board video card makers now too. The only ones it's not capable of is the older ones and hence why Microsoft had to include the gui without the aero glass in it with reasonable performance. But not with OS X, even if the video card can't handle it, the eye candy has to be their. Not a basic version that has some good performance in it.

 

Running OSX Tiger on a G3 does work, nice speed. Runs a little faster then Panther, isn't it ironic.

 

But what about Vista with well - I give you that - even deactivated Aero on a compared PC from 1998?

 

Would be the Pentium II then? Ymmd.

 

ah yes I saw this too. There's just some problems with it. Such as OS X's use of widgets being copied from the konfabulator program. The calendar, how different can you make a calendar look? You can't really do all that much with it, so they're just reaching for straws here. The instant search? That was announced back in the PDC 2003 before 10.4 had it. All Apple did was get it to market first. There is also the user switching in windows xp, Apple later on added it to OS X.

 

Wiki: Dashboard has been widely compared to Konfabulator as a copy of it, due to the similarities between

their graphical aspects and that they both use the term “widgets”.... Although Konfabulator was released

before Dashboard, Dashboard is alleged to be based on Apple’s Desk Accessories, first released in 1984

with the original Macintosh....whereas Konfabulator uses XML and JavaScript to generate Widgets,

Dashboard uses HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Objective C.

 

The calendar is standalone now. Good decision from microsoft, I wonder who came up with this after all the

years of Outlook integrated calendars.

 

And to spotlight, yes there has been a search technology around. But the art is how to integrate it in the gui.

Microsoft made a cute little search dog. Apple made Spotlight. See the difference?

 

I think every MBA would agree that Vista is not a mee-too product, but of course microsoft had to react

to the only second commercial consumer OS out there, even if it is just 2 percent marketshare (lol) And

for that they of course made some things like OS X, and they of course copied them. This is business rules,

every company would have done so.

 

I don't get why the Vista addicted just don't accept this. I mean look at it. It is 1 on 1. Who cares, but stop

complaining that they must have had some spiritual experience that made parts of Vista accidentally look the

same like osx.

Edited January 4, 2007 by xtraa

[joe75]

It only hurts performance in the long run by tinkering with the pagefile settings in Windows, period.

 

I usually always increase the size of my pagefile and I know a few people that put pagefile to a separate disk

[br0adband]

I usually always increase the size of my pagefile and I know a few people that put pagefile to a separate disk

 

And it does nothing for you, I can assure you. Making it larger would only have any beneficial effects if you somehow were maxing it out on a consistent basis and getting the "Out of virtual memory" errors, which I doubt seriously - and if that's the case, you need more RAM or you need to figure out how to get stuff working more efficiently.

 

As for putting the pagefile on another hard drive, there is a possibility of improved performance but only if the following conditions are all true:

 

1) The second hard drive must be on its own unique controller if it's IDE - it cannot be attached to the same cable as the system drive or performance will plummet.

2) The system drive has a Windows-controlled pagefile also and you simply add a secondary one of equal or nearly-equal size to the original one.

 

Meet those two criteria, things improve all around. Miss one, or the other, and pay for it with reduced performance.

 

bb