In defence of Vista

[WiZaRd7]

Yes it is basically the boat anchor of Os's and yes it is bloated beyond belief and yes I want to take to UAC with an axe but there were a few useful things I like about Vista and I would hope they only improve with Windows 7.

Before you get too excited there was nothing about Vista while you are actually in the OS that I liked.

What I like is its ability to find and fix itself from a boot CD and the options it presents from the PE environment it uses. As a tech I also like that it automatically moves the important stuff aside when doing a reinstall over the top to fix various issues. I often boot to a Vista disc rather than an XP disc now to run chkdsk from the recovery console even on an XP installation. I find it is more thorough and fixes issues the XP recovery console does not.

Has anyone used a Windows 7 disc in a repair situation yet and if so what extra things are there that XP/Vista did not have?

 

[sjaak327]

Vista is a great OS, no need to apologize

I must assume that Win7/Vista are the same when it comes to the install DVD, both use the same PE environment.

 

[MrAleX]

Vista is a great OS, no need to apologize

I must assume that Win7/Vista are the same when it comes to the install DVD, both use the same PE environment.

great, yes, compared to sucked xp, but 7 eats ~50% less resources so what we have now is the minimal requirements of xp with vista super possibilities

 

[Orbital Shark]

Vista IMO is a great OS but only if you have the hardware to use it to it's full potential. Se7ev on the otherhand works almost as well (as an OS) on a machine with less than half the memory I have

Microsoft have listened this time & for that I have to thanks them

 

[SIW2]

I don't see any difference in speed or responsiveness between Vista and 7 on my machine. Very little difference in resource usage also.

Probably be different on the average laptop.

The Recovery options are the same. However, there is much more automation with 7 recovery.

IMO this is the best thing about 7 for the average user.

I recommend downloading the 7100RC for Vista users - just to have the Recovery options available - they work very well on Vista.

I have 7 Winre on my Vista partition and have added it to the boot menu options.

 

[sjaak327]

To be honest, I have yet to see a big performance difference, and I use quite old hardware, it is all down to what you throw at it I guess.

Yes they have gained some performance in services and tasks, but that seems to be about it really.

 

[Antman]

In defense of Vista... Oops, I missed my block.

I just see this from a business man's perspective. As an OS, Vista is what Vista is. As a product offering, Vista was not unlike New Coke.

My Vista DVD set is the most expensive item I never used. Unless you consider the '93 RX-7 I bought for Cailin, a month before she dumped me.

 

[KazeNoKoe23]

Vista was something that, at release date, failed to deliver on Microsoft's numerous promises and advertisements. But after 2 service packs worth of fixes and updates, Vista is undeserving of about 95% of the criticism it still gets. People loved XP and IMO that wasn't a good OS until after SP2 as well.

 

[sjaak327]

Vista rocked from RTM onwards, but of course it differed greatly from XP, and had driver and compatiblity issues, XP was never a particular good OS, and is still the most insecure OS ever developed by Microsoft.

 

[WiZaRd7]

Vista rocked from RTM onwards, but of course it differed greatly from XP, and had driver and compatiblity issues, XP was never a particular good OS, and is still the most insecure OS ever developed by Microsoft.

Clearly you are not old enough to remember ME or Win95 with (no) USB support or suffer through a driver installation on anything pre XP SP2

 

[spiritwolf]

i remember ME or Win95 with (no) USB support or suffer through a driver installation on anything that why vista is a mistake from MS.. but mines have been working just fine just that it does not support all my games n eat a lot of memory......but i have long left xp pro since it has cool new features but win 7 is much better so far less memory eater

 

[sjaak327]

Clearly you are not old enough to remember ME or Win95 with (no) USB support or suffer through a driver installation on anything pre XP SP2

LOL !

I even worked with Ms-dos 4 when it was current... Almost 40 thank you very much, with around 25 years duty in IT.

Not sure what Win95 or ME has to do with anything, I was talking about vista and about Xp being the most insecure OS ever developed by Microsoft. Or should I say the OS with the most security vulnerabilities ever, even now new vulnerabilities come out every day.

In any case, both Win95 and Me cannot really be considered as they are not based upon NT, but rather ms dos.

USB support, is was added since Win95SR2.1 So that statement is not entirely accurate. At the time of Win95 there were hardly any USB devices. Seems to me your age is making you forget some things

In any case, the Vista driver problems, were tiny for me personally, but hey people complained about it a lot so...

 

[MrAleX]

Vista rocked from RTM onwards, but of course it differed greatly from XP, and had driver and compatiblity issues, XP was never a particular good OS, and is still the most insecure OS ever developed by Microsoft.

oh yes xp is da baddest MS OS. vista has more drivers embedded, but 7.. just a little! nearly EVERY part of my laptop installs smoothly with win 7. perfect, MS, congrats, you did it.

 

[KazeNoKoe23]

Clearly you are not old enough to remember ME or Win95 with (no) USB support or suffer through a driver installation on anything pre XP SP2

Those were the days. I remember something a bit more recent that was funny. It wasn't that big a deal then (although it would be now), but Windows 2000 (via SP3 I believe) had native USB 2.0 support before Windows XP did.

 

[FXDriverGuy]

LOL !

I even worked with Ms-dos 4 when it was current... Almost 40 thank you very much, with around 25 years duty in IT.

Not sure what Win95 or ME has to do with anything, I was talking about vista and about Xp being the most insecure OS ever developed by Microsoft. Or should I say the OS with the most security vulnerabilities ever, even now new vulnerabilities come out every day.

In any case, both Win95 and Me cannot really be considered as they are not based upon NT, but rather ms dos.

USB support, is was added since Win95SR2.1 So that statement is not entirely accurate. At the time of Win95 there were hardly any USB devices. Seems to me your age is making you forget some things

In any case, the Vista driver problems, were tiny for me personally, but hey people complained about it a lot so...

Well, I was well into my studies to get a computer engineering degree when MSDOS 4 came out (and a computer enthusiast since the ZX Spectrum days) and I can tell you that your statements are grossly inaccurate.


XP the most insecure OS ever developed by Microsoft? Sure, that's why techies and businesses alike are still refusing to "upgrade" although practically forced at gun point by now. The fact is that XP is the longest used OS version in the history of OS versions. Sure this means it still has fixes coming out but that's only because it is still being used, a lot. 100% bug free softwareis so legendary a tool as the philosopher's stone.


Windows 95 based on MS-DOS? That's something not even worth arguing. But what makes only an OS based on NT.. an OS (which we can then consider to be insecure), in any case?

 

[Zidane24]

LOL !

I even worked with Ms-dos 4 when it was current... Almost 40 thank you very much, with around 25 years duty in IT.

Not sure what Win95 or ME has to do with anything, I was talking about vista and about Xp being the most insecure OS ever developed by Microsoft. Or should I say the OS with the most security vulnerabilities ever, even now new vulnerabilities come out every day.

In any case, both Win95 and Me cannot really be considered as they are not based upon NT, but rather ms dos.

USB support, is was added since Win95SR2.1 So that statement is not entirely accurate. At the time of Win95 there were hardly any USB devices. Seems to me your age is making you forget some things

In any case, the Vista driver problems, were tiny for me personally, but hey people complained about it a lot so...

don't forget win98 was also MS-DOS based

 

[Antman]

MS - A flash in the pan?

Well, I was well into my studies to get a computer engineering degree when MSDOS 4 came out (and a computer enthusiast since the ZX Spectrum days) and I can tell you that your statements are grossly inaccurate...

True.

The fact is that XP is the longest used OS version in the history of OS versions.

Not true.

TOPS 10, Linux, Kronos, even OS/390... MCP - 48 years and counting.

I really do know what you mean though. Apples and oranges, I know.

Am I a PC? I am a way back machine.

 

[sjaak327]

Well, I was well into my studies to get a computer engineering degree when MSDOS 4 came out (and a computer enthusiast since the ZX Spectrum days) and I can tell you that your statements are grossly inaccurate.


XP the most insecure OS ever developed by Microsoft? Sure, that's why techies and businesses alike are still refusing to "upgrade" although practically forced at gun point by now. The fact is that XP is the longest used OS version in the history of OS versions. Sure this means it still has fixes coming out but that's only because it is still being used, a lot. 100% bug free softwareis so legendary a tool as the philosopher's stone.


Windows 95 based on MS-DOS? That's something not even worth arguing. But what makes only an OS based on NT.. an OS (which we can then consider to be insecure), in any case?

It is NOT grossy inaccurate, the number of vulernabilities that have been discovered for XP are staggering. The reason Vista was so late, was that Microsoft was forced to work on XP and make it more secure (service pack 2). The reason companies did not consider upgrading to Vista had nothing to do with XP not being insecure, and had everything to do with application compatibility. In corporate environments, with locked down internet access, XP's architecture is less of a problem. Even though even there XP has left it's marks.

In fact, even XP3 still suffers from things like drive by downloads, simply because once you run that OS as admin, it's dead easy to bring down the OS.

The above is not worth arguing and can be easily verified. The fact that Windows 95 is based on MS-dos is indeed not worth arguing, as it still even booted MS-dos (version 7.0). The NT family is a different family, and surely more secure. I am not saying that Win 95 was more secure then XP, probably not. But in the NT family, XP holds the records for security vulnerabilities, the majority in the first few years of it's release.

 

[FXDriverGuy]

It is NOT grossy inaccurate, the number of vulernabilities that have been discovered for XP are staggering. The reason Vista was so late, was that Microsoft was forced to work on XP and make it more secure (service pack 2). The reason companies did not consider upgrading to Vista had nothing to do with XP not being insecure, and had everything to do with application compatibility. In corporate environments, with locked down internet access, XP's architecture is less of a problem. Even though even there XP has left it's marks.

In fact, even XP3 still suffers from things like drive by downloads, simply because once you run that OS as admin, it's dead easy to bring down the OS.

The above is not worth arguing and can be easily verified. The fact that Windows 95 is based on MS-dos is indeed not worth arguing, as it still even booted MS-dos (version 7.0). The NT family is a different family, and surely more secure. I am not saying that Win 95 was more secure then XP, probably not. But in the NT family, XP holds the records for security vulnerabilities, the majority in the first few years of it's release.

I didn't say XP was the bastion of security, but certainly not the most insecure OS developed by Microsoft. I did say that any OS used so widely and so long was bound to have many vulnerabilities discovered. I did say that anyone who believes things would be different for any other OS in the same situation may as well believe in philosopher's stones.

It's certainly a security risk to give highly inexperienced people administrator rights but that has got nothing to do with real OS security. It's certainly dead easy to bring down any OS in existence if you have sufficient rights, and it always will be. That's the whole point of having these rights in the first place.

Windows 95 used a DOS subsystem to boot and keep the necessary compatibility. Calling that OS DOS-based was a way, at the time, to give an idea of the differences between NT and Chicago to people that had no idea at all. Something akin to telling them that a highway is just like a goat path and has nothing to do with air travel.

 

[Antman]

From Surviving the Next Operating System -- H. Gilbert (1995)

We used to run Windows under DOS, but Windows 95 runs DOS under Windows.

When Windows 95 boots, the Windows Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) initializes itself and loads the VxD modules that were previously Windows device drivers. VxD drivers exist for IDE and SCSI disks and for the extended VFAT file system. The network support loads support for Windows NT and Novell servers. Since this support runs as a VxD, it can be loaded into memory above the first megabyte of RAM. Although VxDs support Windows applications, they also support DOS programs running under the control of the VMM. Therefore, the command shell of Windows 95 will have access to extended features (such as long file names) that real DOS device drivers and file systems would not support.

However, there are still occasional odd devices that only have DOS device drives. Windows 95 must still support them. So at this point, the VMM creates a "DOS Virtual Machine" that is actually fairly real. It loads into the fairly real DOS virtual machine any drivers that it finds mentioned in the CONFIG.SYS dataset, and any resident routines that it finds mentioned in AUTOEXEC.BAT. Later on, when Windows 95 receives a request for a device with no native VxD support, it uses the Real Mode Mapper (RMM) to pass the request down to the fairly-real DOS where the old driver can process it (synchronously and using buffers in the 640K area).

A major feature of Windows 95 is that it "gets rid of DOS." Technically, this is a correct statement. However, the DOS programs are simply merged into the \WINDOWS directory and the DOS system function is repackaged. This new version of DOS supports long file names, and \\SERVER\SHARE\FILE.EXT syntax wherever a file or directory might appear. However, the change is still evolutionary and not radical. There has been a shift in emphasis. The glass switches from being half empty to half full.