I'm just sittin back laughin behind my Win2k 'fossil'. They announced XP and I said, screw that. And later on I giggled like a schoolgirl on sugar. They announced Vista and I said, sheayeah, right, keep it. And later on I laughed like a psychopath with scissors. And *nix geeks... they try pretty hard, but for the low low price of a complete reload every three months I have a perfectly stable operating system I can count on. Silly humans. When will they learn?

2k was the best stable thing they put out. Vista is hilariously bad. You know the right click on desktop -> change resolution, background, screen saver, etc. Well that is all gone. It's like 9 clicks and a confusing menu.

I'm hoping there is a rebellion and people demand XP and new machines. Sadly, I think M$ has deals to force Dell, HP, etc to preload Vista Home (total crap) on everything.

You need Vista Business to do anything, and even then it is missing the Media Center / DVD stuff..

I want a Cray, to use for furniture, AND store muzak in.....they were so goddamn pretty....

Hmmm funny stuff cept the guy must not be to techy...
First off he actually paid for a OS...
Second ive installed Vista on a machine we used for the "XP" release and it works fine...

he's a radio dj, so I'm sure he overembellishing a bit.

Death to Vista.

Forgive my redundancy, but as I posted in a similar Vista sift:
How about the fact that DirectX 10 is trash. Sure Direct3D has some cool new features, and games like Crysis look amazing, but what about the other DX10 components? DX10 no longer supports hardware-accelerated sound in order to "protect the kernel." (See: How to implement DRM.) In fact, getting any of the cool 3D audio/sound filters requires you to install a patch that uses OpenAL (the audio equivalent of OpenGL) instead of the sound component of DirectX. Without that, you're stuck with some flat, stereo sound.
Add to that the fact that DirectInput (input from keyboards/mice/joysticks) has been borked so that it's "more compatible with the XBox360 controller" (See: Let's try to unify our gaming cash cow) and DirectX 10 isn't so sweet anymore.
The alternative is to use OpenGL for graphics, OpenAL for sound, and SDL/GLUT for everything else. All of these are cross platform, and most of them work BETTER than DirectX (excepting OpenGL, although it's not really that far behind graphics-wise) and you kinda wonder why game developers still stick with DirectX . . .

joedirt's comment concerning the change to the resolution switch troubles me most; I mean, I have the alternative of using the nvidia feature, but I always felt this was one thing that Windows got "right" ever since I could change resolutions without resetting my system.

My enthusiasm for an upgrade, although never particularly high, continues to fall.

What I do want, though, is a sweet 24" widescreen...

Well, they're only trying to make it "easier"...

Has anyone pointed out that that isn't Opie? Thats Anthony.

And @ fiver2 he wasent over embelishing. He spent over 12 hours strait trying to install that rushed out, half baked, poor excuse for a beta on a top of the line dell that had "Vista ready" on the box.
The problem was his nVidia card and microsoft's complete inability to let 3rd party developers in on the driver specs

I have the exact same shredder. And if I had a copy of Vista, which won't ever happen, I would do exactly the same thing.

Windows 2000 all the way!

Actually I wrote that I thought he was over embelishing but it sounds like you listened to the show. And I can never figure out who is who, but I'll change the title to give Anthony the credit he deserves.

thats, funny, I Upgraded to Vista the other day from XP and it took about an hour and everything worked fine, I love it... maybe he put the CD in a mac...

Mocking vista is so cheap

Ha. I ignored this for a while, thinking it was just another boring Vista video.

I don't know why everyone's obsessed with windows. Mac!

Vista's great. It's easy to use, pleasing on the eyes, faster than XP, and it's been pretty bug-free. Maybe I'm not geek enough as I don't use the more advanced features and don't really understand the more advanced stuff here.

that guy is more annoying than an upgrade gone wrong.

LOL, phelixian's comment is as funny as crazy lady: http://www.videosift.com/video/Crazy-super-fundie-christian-freak-on-Trading-Spouses

Oh, and update: I've placed the order for my screen.

zomg, the evil micro$haft put out a new os, it must be horrible, zomg mac, and linux ftw, ZOMG, ELLEVEN, you people are tools for loving the microshaft.... lollllzzzz....

/on an xp machine with 30 + days of up time
//runs all graphics software faster than a mac.... ahaha Rosetta... hahaha
///has a game market, yay for pc releases
////won't be installing vista for a while but seriously people fanboyism is lame.

so all snark aside, I doubt that i will convince a mac fanboy that microsoft is sweet, and i doubt you will convince me otherwise. That said 95% of the world runs on MS software so they must be doing something right, and apple must just be playing to the underdog mentality... am i right? am i right?


.... tired of anti vista meme on the internaughts, will wait a year to install it when all the drm crap is busted....

final side note, any haters harping on the DRM, if you own a new intel mac please see the TPM that came included on your motherboard, cross reference that with apples approach to DRM in iTunes, get back with me once leopard is out.

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As the resident Mac Fanboy, can I just add ...




Vista Sucks.


Thank you

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I use XP everyday at my day job. Today, coincidentally - I compiled a list of the top 7 things I hate about Windows:

1. Hidden/collapsed menu items in Word. What a goofy idea, and so annoying - why hide menu items that you are looking for. Classic.

2. whole word auto-select. The number of times I've had to turn that off. It just keeps coming back.

3. Clipboard menu keeps coming-up on CTRL-C. Again, I keep turning it off, it keeps coming back.

4. Grouping of multiple windows in a task bar. So if you have more than 3 Word windows open they get collapsed into a single brick in the task bar. Often truncating the title of the document, so no hope of actually figuring out which is which, without clicking on each one.

5. CTRL-F doesn't = "Find" in Outlook. Am minor gripe, but it shits me.

6. Crappy "unsmart" name finding in Outlook address book. Good luck if you are in a large organization.

7. The "open file" dialog box. It doesn't remember that I like my files sorted by date descending, so I can find the most recent one I'm working on. Invariably the "date" header is way off somewhere else, which requires a horizontal scroll then a click.

I'm wondering are any of these things fixed in Vista? If so I may install it on Parallels for my Mac.

as a long term windows user let me debunk your list.

1. The word hidden collapsible list modifies itself based on what you use frequently. If this is your own personal machine it is pretty sweet, but on a lab imaged machine it can be infuriating. You can also disable it in settings.

2. Agreed, hate that shit.

3. That's because you have ms office tools running at start up, just disable it. Can be useful though during formatting, for instance a thesis paper. (have had to do it in the past)

4. As someone who currently has 12 explorer windows open, you are a chump if you dislike this feature. I wish i could set it so that it would keep even two of them together at any given time so that i could close them all.

5. You use outlook?

6. You use outlook?

7. This is a setting that can be changed in tools -> folder options from any explorer window. You can set it to remember specific preferences for a folder, or apply a generic one system wide.

Just because you don't know what you are doing, does not make the system bad.

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I use Outlook at my corporate schlock job. You're right - I often don't know what I'm doing on Windows. But that's also a good point. Why do I have to be a power Windows user like you to figure all this out?

MS Office tools installs by default, so I'm guessing that 95% of the people in my office have the same problem. If MS would spend less time making shiny new additions, and more time making the interface intuitive to use out of the box - I think people like me would be much less grouchy.

The Word auto-select problem has been there for like 5 years, and still hasn't gone away. This is not a company that spends a lot of time thinking about usability.

your average mac user can't add a WEP key either, I think you are just used to using mac. Also accessing a samba network from a mac is a ludicrous endeavor. With so much samba out there why can't they just make it intuitive. :-P

I didn't realize that this video would get so many people so heated, in all honesty I'm and O and A fan and I found the video amusing. I've been using windows for a number of years and I don't ever see myself owning ANYTHING made by Apple, nevertheless I think Vista needs some time to ripen before I install it on my machine, besides XP has yet to let me down. My only concern is that DX10 only games may force me to upgrade pre-maturely. I hope there may one day be a world where PC lovers and Mac lovers can live togather in non-proprietary happiness.

exactly, I too will be waiting a year or so to install vista. I did the same with xp from win 2k. No reason to rush, i will let others suffer. Ditto re: games.

Controversies playlist addition made for the "clash of titans", 'intelligent fanboy'-style, above.

I installed WordPerfect on my laptop so I can write up things there, then move to Word when/if necessary to share with the unwashed masses.

This whole issue inspired me to write a bit.

Much the same type of points James made, though...

BTW - the February 2007 PC Gamer has a great Mac Pro vs. custom PC box showdown. Good times.

Oh, and don't bother showing up to a gaming competition without your own GeForce 8800

And @koshmar, you should really check out the PC Gamer article I referenced; it makes similar comments.

And I wouldn't take half of the comments in this little thread too seriously - a big fat grain of salt is definitely in order.

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your average mac user can't add a WEP key either,

Well, there is a wide breadth of Mac users. Sure there are the graphic design/video/sound people who might have problems with the more techie stuff -

Then there are the would be Linux users who want all the goodies that Linux offers with a much better UI than anything from KDE or Gnome. (ooh, I may have just opened a second OS war front)

I think my playlisting was, if anything, most appropriate.

I was just being snarky about pointing out that every one is comfortable with a particular system. How far removed are we from the average user just by being on a forum?

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For people interested in usability, I like Bruce Tognazzini's Web site.

He did a great article deconstructing the bad interface on a dishwasher

Wow, that's hilarious and v. intelligent. And have you ever tried to set the time on a modern stove/range's digital clock? GAH, infuriating!

Then there's the microwave ovens I see in offices where people keep hitting "clock" instead of "time cook", reseting the clock regularly. I gave up trying to fix their clock to the correct time because some boob would wander in an rest it sooner or later anyway.

And what's up with having a "quick minute" button which doesn't automatically start the oven? That's just retarded - if I wanted to wait first, I'd dial in the # myself first, then hit start. Silly silly design (or lack thereof!)

I like this story too - on Scott Adams' blog and plane crashes: http://www.asktog.com/columns/069ScottAdamsMeltdown.html

Those are interesting points you both bring up, it's kinda sad that when I visit my family I have to get tutorials on how to run the dishwasher or even the coffee maker. Devices such as these should be simple yet intuitive. My family now owns a microwave which has no numbers on the console, it has a knob that you twist to set the cook time, who decided that buttons with numbers on them weren't simple enough, maybe I wanted to cook my hot pocket for 1:37 seconds.

"I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC). PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension." --Charlie Brooker

Quoted from I Hate Macs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

Charlie Brooker is the man... I loved his comment at the end of that Guardian Piece:

"Hello. Charlie Brooker here.

I wrote this piffle. Then it was subbed. And whoever subbed it decided to add a bit describing Doom as “the first shoot-em-up game”.

Words fail me.

They also changed every abbreviation -– so “they’re” becomes “they are” and “it’s” becomes “it is”, and so on -- presumably in an attempt to inject a bit more plodding, impersonal joylessness to the whole thing.

Bet they did it on a Mac, too."

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The great Mac backlash has begun. I suppose it's only natural when something has been the media darling for so long.

I like Macs because I find I'm about 30% more efficient at getting stuff done.

It's got its few clever moments to be sure, but the best is at the end where he stands, throws the box down and kicks it aside. Unexpected = win.

I think it's funny becuase you can tell he's a little on edge the whole time and you can almost feel his frustration and then at the end there is just all comes out. It's exactly the way I feel when something just doesn't work. In MicroSofts defense it's pretty easy to create an operating system to run on your proprietary system like Apple does there aren't as many surprises in terms of system configurations. But designing an operating system that runs smoothly on any number of millions of different system configurations is quite a task, not to mention the thousands of people constantly scouring the OS to find flaws they can use to spread havoc or make a quick buck I'd say MicroSoft does a pretty good job. None-the-less it always feels great to take out your frustrations on that which has caused them.

Wha? You two are actually talking about THIS video? What a concept!

Going back to the Guardian piece - which is pure gold - I love this part:
"The ads are adapted from a near-identical American campaign - the only difference is the use of Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show - probably the best sitcom of the past five years - in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, "PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers." In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign."

Don't even get me started on those Mac ads.

From the Guardian Piece again, my favorite part, as a gamer (and mac ad hater, the os is ok, the marketing and "cool factor" of it makes me want to kick babies)

"Aside from crowing about sartorial differences, the adverts also make a big deal about PCs being associated with "work stuff" (Boo! Offices! Boo!), as opposed to Macs, which are apparently better at "fun stuff". How insecure is that? And how inaccurate? Better at "fun stuff", my arse. The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye. For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac."

Again, not a fan of PC v Mac debates but can't resist putting my oar in.

I do prefer PCs over Macs. I am used to them. Re Windows, well yes we deserve better. The main line of division however is simply that of price. I know plenty of friends and colleagues who might benefit from a Mac. But when you can build a PC out of old parts (hell my main pc uses a 4MB graphics card) then it's easy to see the value for money arguments. I have built computers for a number of friends all of whom could put together enough money for what they needed but certainly couldn't buy a PC for a £1000 in the shops let alone an Ives design classic. When what they want to do is pretty basic including web browsing, why should they?

Then there's the upgradeability argument - not so good on the Apple platform.

And yet Apple can make desirable AND affordable music players. Their flash-based stuff is great and it's no wonder they sell so many. Itunes is rubbish and certainly doesn't feel like a Windows app on Windows, yet users suck it up.

In both areas the main dictating factors are price and crossing that line when something becomes good enough to use.

If Vista can be "fixed" - they really must seriously produce a robust and secure operating system and the shackles of DRM are removed then we might have something worth looking at. Just providing some new eye-candy and catching up on OSX features isn't good enough when so many people use the Windows platform for work and play and deserve something alot better.

i just love how in any microsoft vs apple or IE vs Firefox or ANY 'big market share vs underdog' debate, there always seems to be more underdog fanboys than the 'big market share' fanboys.

just an observation.

Reading the comments on the Guardian piece a few things spring to mind;

* A lot of Mac owners took it all far too seriously - it was a humourous article
* Given that Macs are Intel-based now the only real difference is the operating system. So why can't I install OSX on my £400 home-built PC?
* Windows is not the PC platform. There are a variety of OSes on the PC, you can leave Windows behind any time you like. The Mac/PC debate is really a Windows/OSX flame-war and god is it boring.

I think Vista was the best thing to happen to OSX. (or at least Ubuntu)
I mean, how many people are going to buy new computers, get this sluggish brick, with all sorts of new annoying things (stuff can't get written in c:Program Files) and they haven't fixed a single thing that annoys you about Windows.

Dag is right, the stupid File-Open mini-menu never saves anything, Last Folder location, window size, Sort By Details... You have to fight with the same crap everytime (occasionally an app will remember previous dir, but that's it).

If Apple would realize the hardware isn't that important now that iPhone and iPod will be 70% of revenue... They SHOULD go for the jugular and remove the DRM stuff to lock OSX to apple hardware. I realize they don't support anything but a handful of devices/drviers. But if you have the right chipset/CPU/graphics... Then you should be able to buy OSX. They should have a big disclaimer about what hardware is supported. And the Chinese will go nuts producing boxen that are compatible. Hell, my Dell laptop ran OSX just fine when the first Intel OSX86 was leaked.

(BTW OSX is easy to upgrade... It's freakin BSD/Linux, so user files go here, OS goes here. Programs go here, configs for programs go some place logical.. Easy cheesy... Good luck with Vista upgrade over buggy XP)

I love how Microsoft is so insanely incompetent that you can't just install clean on your computer. You would have to wipe/ install XP (probably upgrade to SP2) / then upgrade to Vista. What happens with Office trojan wipes out you computer...

All I know is that I have a "Vista Capable" machine and a free copy of Vista Business, and there is no way I'm installing.. Maybe if I get a spare harddrive.. (No point installing into VMware cause you don't get the Aero glass with VMware graphics support) Also, Nvidia is still not supported in Vista YET....

I have to install about 1000 freeware programs before Windows is useable, and it is all stuff that comes with just about every for of Unix.. Try "ls *.txt | grep whatever" in Windows.

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I agree that a lot of Apple marketing stuff is drivel, but the proof is is in the pudding. I love having Apache, Perl, a unix command line, Vi, + all of the goodies like Photoshop, Office etc. Games you say? Get an Xbox 360 and be done with it.

Have a look at this diagram of system calls from a single page load on Apache/Linux compared with IIS/Windows. http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=392

The problem is that Apple is not the solution for the vast majority of Windows users. I just don't see millions and millions suddenly buying Macs based on their current campaign. It doesn't even actually sell the product, just makes silly remarks about another platform.

Microsoft need to get their act together and make a decent OS from the ground without the DRM. You would have to nuke your existing setup most probably but once that pain is over the foundations have been laid for a new generation of OS.

Again if I didn't have to use Windows for work I would be installing Ubuntu no question. Vista just doesn't answer the question of why you need to upgrade but offers many reasons why you might be hesitant.

As for games forget it. You're quite right Dag, a 360 is a good choice and I'm looking forward to Crackdown very soon...

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I agree Deano - I think Microsoft needs to start from the ground up, embrace a Unix back-end and run emulation software for legacy Windows apps.

I'm just not sure that MS is capable of eating that much crow.

Unless you guys are talking about the 8800, there are Vista compatible nVidia drivers, FFS they're even available on Microsoft Update. I wouldn't do it with a tablet, but i had it working perfectly on my 40gb spare drive before the eval ran out and i installed Ubu. Having run both, I have to say I prefer Ubu over Windows any day, there just needs to be more support for games other than Wine or Cedega.
(Beryl is the greatest thing to happen to eyecandy since the GUI itself.)
Vista is, just like everything else MS makes, late to the party...

Mac's are good for certain people with certain habits and certain hobbies. PC's are good for everyone else who doesn't fall into that specific category. Easy as that.


(oh and just for the record, to change your res in Vista, it's 3 clicks, not 9. Right click desktop, Personalize, Display Settings... and not only display settings are there. Appearance settings, mouse control, sounds, pointers, theme, etc.)

There are Vista drivers for Nvidia.. .but the are complete crap (1/3 FPS over XP). Check out latest "Beta" drivers.
Updated January 31, 2007: NVIDIA has a newer Beta driver for GeForce 6 and 7 series GPUs that is available to download. "These NVIDA Windows Vista drivers are under development. This version is not fully optimized for full 3D performance and may not include all available features available on different operating systems. NVIDIA, along with the industry, is continuing to update its Windows Vista drivers to ensure maximum performance on 3D applications and add support for features."

No SLI support, and I'm not sure works well with Dual Core.

The truth is...if OSX was all that....and Apple had the balls...they would release it as a competing OS to Windows. Meaning ANY Intel based PC that anyone was to buy or build with any number of combination of third party hardware we would have the choice of installing Windows or OSX on it.

The reality is if that was the case you would still have people just like Anthony in this video frustrated that they could not get OSX to install on their OSX ready PC because of some video driver issue or any other number of things that could possibly go wrong when the company that makes the OS does not have total control over the hardware it is being used on.

@dag & Deano: Xbox? Bah! I want to be able to get a graphics cost that costs more than the entire Xbox unit.

I'm viewing this in vista right now so I'm really getting a kick out of these replies.

LOL, Vista's running quite nicely for me too.

I just had the most elegant graphics card upgrade of all time - a couple of reboots and everything had essentially set itself up (extra reboot just b/c I insisted on getting a new driver for my 8800 from nvidia.

I might be gone for a while now... DX10 gaming beckons!