OT Windows Vista Warning

I've tried to avoid your bait, but to no avail...

Ok, name those aspects which prevent Windows being used successfully as a desktop operating system (I won't even mention servers - remember, you said we were only considering desktops).

Thing is, using your analogy, according to you the majority of people aren't getting from A to B - which is fairly obviously nonsense. Windows as an OS does provide that equivalent. Sure, older versions would break down occasionally - but they'd get there, and even that's no longer the problem it once was.

The majority of desktop computer users are successfully proving you wrong - it works sufficiently well. To use the car analogy again, it may not be as fast as a ferrari or carry as many people as a bus, but it does have the engine, wheels, brakes, steering, etc required to be described as an OS.

clive

Reply to
Clive George
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Yes. But not fit for purpose.

Unless it's a Reliant Robin with two SRBs and an external fuel tank, of course...

Reply to
Bob Eager

There wasn't really any bait other than to point out the deficiencies

Of course, but the point was about whether or not it's a car

I think that you are being very kind about it. Older versions broke down daily. Even XP with latest service packs and dozens of patches continues to be insecure and unstable and suffer from a creeping tendency to become unusably slow.

For example, it is virtually impossible to regularly hibernate and restart an XP notebook without a full cold reboot every few days. I've seen this across a wide range of notebooks and among may users. The networking is flakey, especially the handling of WiFi. It is far too easy for an ordinary user to wreck what is installed beyond the point of repairability.

I last rebooted my MacBook Pro before Christmas. Other than that I can just open and close it when needed and it's ready to go in a very few seconds. Being Intel hardware, it will also boot Windows or Linux. Linux works really well also but Windows, predictably, is a dog.

Anything can appear to be successful given sufficient marketing and having users believe that they are doing something wrong when it breaks.

The trouble is that it really doesn't.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Hmm.....

Reply to
Andy Hall

In comparison with the car Function - to get people from A to B Does it do what people expect ? -Yes it gets me from A to B Does it cross oceans? No it doesn't cross oceans So it only gets you from A to B for a very limited value of A and B. So it's not a car.

Yes it is a car.

Reply to
OG

The trouble is that it doesn't even do that unless A and B are so limited as to be uninteresting.

Is it? Are you sure?

It may be a car for you, but it isn't for me.

Reply to
Andy Hall

I'm not really that interested. Just wondering how far you were prepared to go.

Reply to
OG

Rather different to his original, unqualified "That's because it isn't an OS"...isn't it?

Reply to
Bob Eager

Similar to those people who insist that only Italians make 'cars'.

Reply to
OG

Nope. It was qualified by the context of the thread.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Now that really *would* be a stretch.

We all know that that only applies to the Americans.

Reply to
Andy Hall

It's a car. It might not be the most perfectly reliable car, but it's a car nonetheless. Or are you saying that thing which sits on people's drives ceases to be a car should it ever break down, even if it's fixed?

IME not so. It's actually pretty stable, and doesn't slow down in the way you claim.

Maybe. I never said it was perfect. But, and this is the point you've been arguing, lack of perfection does not stop it being an OS.

I've never had problems with the wired networking on anything in the past few years.

Except it's actually doing rather better than that. It may not be perfect, but it's significantly better than you pretend. There's a hell of a lot of people out there using it without problems, every day. Trying to deny it's successful is rather akin to putting ones head in the sand - it's not going to go away.

You haven't yet mentioned anything which prevents Windows being used successfully as a desktop OS. Stopping the machine overnight/every few days doesn't prevent the rest of the time being a success. A couple of people with a dodgy WiFi driver doesn't stop everybody else's WiFi working just fine.

Try again - or are you just being religious?

clive

Reply to
Clive George

Is it still a car if it never had brakes or a steering wheel?

Then you can't be doing much with it..... Across a sample of dozens of people I know, it always does exactly this and the reasons are never clear.

Lack of having the capabilities, security and stability to be safely and effectively usable prevent it from legitimately having that distinction. OTOH, if one were to look at the characteristics of a monitor/debugger, then it has a number of them, although not by design.

I said wireless.

It's nowhere close to perfect. Something that requires a daily reboot, has security and other patches virtually daily, is a security hole, has major hardware compatibility issues is tantamount to worthless

Using it, perhaps. Without problems, no. Expectations are low when you haven't seen a proper system.

It's certainly successful. If one put enough marketing behind piles of shit and told people that they are great and are a must have, they would flock to buy it

It isn't a desktop OS, it's a monitor/debugger. If you don't think that the issues that I've mentioned are critical requirements in an OS then you will continue to be at risk from security and operational problems.

That's pathetic. I've had my Mac in a booted state since before Christmas, a Linux desktop for a year and a half.

It's rather more than that

No need. The religion is acceptance of whatever MS hands out regardless of whether it's any good or not. It seems to have a lot of adherants

Reply to
Andy Hall

'cept it does have those.

Well, I only use it for my job, so obviously I don't use it much. Across a sample of more than dozens of people I work with, it works.

You're just being perverse. It is effectively usable, as those using it on a daily basis demonstrate. It's even usable by my mum, which is a pretty good recommendation.

Actually you said "especially the handling of WiFi", implying the wired networking was flaky too. Which IME it isn't. I don't use WiFi, so didn't comment on that part of what you said.

Doesn't require a daily reboot, only has as many patches as eg linux (dunno about MacOS), security holes aren't nearly as bad as you pretend, has rather better hardware compatibility than eg linux and MacOS - all your examples are completely bogus.

(actually I'm pretty impressed that you mentioned "has major hardware compatibility issues" when your preferred OS only runs on a very limited range of hardware...)

Expectations are that it will work, and enable them to do their job. It succeeds in this.

It's not just marketing though - the product isn't actually that bad any more.

What issues that you've mentioned? Once again, you've failed to list any. Or was it those ones I debunked above?

You seem to be assuming that a critical requirement in an OS is that it runs perfectly. It isn't. HTH.

There there. I never claimed it was perfect. It doesn't actually prevent it being useful.

It's rather less than you pretend. I know you don't like to accept it, but there are a lot of people out there using WiFi successfully on windows boxes.

I do hope you're not including me in that list - because you'd be being very badly wrong.

clive

Reply to
Clive George

Don't you just love nerds arguing

-- Pufter

Reply to
Pufter

No matter how many times he repeats it.

Reply to
manatbandq

So service processes can be identified, terminated and restarted cleanly? No. Exactly.

Like I said - your expectations must be low.

I'm being realistic

Without any problems?

Both aspects of the network are highly susceptible to DOS attacks because of the large number of open ports. The WiFi implementation compounds this with unreliability and dropouts.

If you use it in a notebook with anything more than Internet Exploder and Outlook Express, its own memory leaks plus those of the malware, MSOffice pretty much guarantee a need to reboot daily.

MAC OS runs very well in part because it has mainly defined hardware, although it will also quite happily support a huge range of peripheral plugins without needing to resort to extra questionable software.

Linux runs across a vast range of hardware and even different CPU environments.

If expectations are low enough because the marketing machine has set them that low, then anything can be deemed successful. I don't have particularly high expectations other than the product will do what it says on the box and in the documentation - i.e. provide a stable and secure environment that doesn't degrade over time. Windows fails abysmally against these criteria.

In comparison with operating systems that are actually usable, it is appalling.

I provided a complete list in another post, related to security, integrity and performance. You haven't debinked any of them.

The critical requirement is that it is adequately secure, perfromant and non degrading. Windows fails these tests.

If you think that having to reboot every day or every couple of days is an acceptable measure of quality, then your expectations are very low indeed.

Using Wifi perhaps. Successfully? Certainly not. It simply doesn't work with adequate reliability.

You tell me. If you cover shit with gold leaf, it remains, and always will be shit.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Weird. That's something I can do pretty well on both *nix and windows. It's also something I don't need to do very often at all on either.

Our expectations are that it will provide a workable environment to do my job. It succeeds.

I'm the one being realistic, recognising that it does do what an OS is supposed to do. You're the one pretending it doesn't, and pretending that the flaws it does have mean it is bizarrely no konger entitled to hold that name.

Yes, I think so. She needed a tiny bit of handholding when she first started using it, but she was coming from a non-windows background. And I never claimed windows wasn't flawed - that handholding is merely UI, not OS stuff.

Does having an open port mean it's not an operating system? I think not. It's a flaw - but once again, I've never denied there are flaws. For a desktop OS, it's not even that big a deal - by default on XP SP2, there aren't ports open to the public.

IME the OS doesn't leak. I can't really comment on MS Office - I don't use that very much.

And the support for peripherals (graphics cards, etc) under linux isn't as good as it is for windows. I'm not saying it isn't adequate - but it isn't as good. I'm not the one who's claiming everything has to be perfect.

Bollocks. It doesn't degrade for most people, it's pretty darn stable, and it's adequately secure.

It's not perfect, but it is more than adequate for purpose.

Um, no it isn't. Sorry. It's not even slightly "appalling". It's got problems, but they're nothing like deserving of that appelation.

You haven't provided a list here. Could you copy the relevant bits in, just so I don't waste my time trying to reply to bits which aren't relevant?

Once again, no it doesn't. It is addequately secure (default since XP SP2), it's adequately performant, and it doesn't degrade in the way you claim it does.

I think not. I leave servers running (and even the windows ones actually manage to do that pretty well), but desktops get switched off when they're not in use overnight.

Thing is, I know people who are using it, which rather disproves your claim.

I tell you what?

clive

Reply to
Clive George

Right click on my computer and select manage. Now select services from the tree view on the left. Right hand pane now displays all services installed, their running state, and their activation method etc. Use the control provided to stop, start or restart the service. How much simpler do you want it?

Reply to
John Rumm

I can understand that.

It does something, but it is not what an OS is supposed to do.

Yes.....

Of course not explicitly - it is what happens as a result that renders it as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

ROTFLMAO. The whole thing is wide open. That's the problem with it.

You have to be joking. It leaks like a sieve with just what is delivered. Add the MSOffice malware and it becomes a torrent. Why do you think that they specify a need for large amounts of memory? It isn't because the "OS" needs it, but simply to provide a period of operation before it breaks that keep the phone calls on the support line in Mumbai down to a reasonable level.

Actually it's better. Things that are listed as supported tend to work well.

Neither am I. However, there is a level of acceptability that makes something usable or not.

You have to be joking. It does degrade, it is nowhere close to stable and it is nowhere neare being adequately secure either. Do you own Microsoft stock or are you drinking the KoolAid?

Provided that the purpose is sufficiently limited and expectations are low enough.

Actually you're right. "Horrendous" would be a more accurate description.

I've heard some understatements.....

Do your own research. The list was provided, complete with reasons as to why.

Sorry, but it suffers so badly from DOS susceptibility that it's a joke, it underperforms by an order of magnitude on a given platform compared with Linux and degrades noticably within a few weeks.

If something has to be rebooted daily in order to work, it does not qualify as a viable desktop operating environment.

Not really. Have you asked them how well it works? Would they know?

Very little by the sound of it.

Reply to
Andy Hall

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