Windows Vista Released to Consumers
According to CNet: Buying Vista? Get a guarantee
Customers who pay about $233 for an upgrade copy of Vista Ultimate (or about $399 for the full version), for instance, could essentially end up running the equivalent of Vista Home Basic ($100 to $199) if Vista’s installation software finds that the computer doesn’t have the hardware to run specific Ultimate features optimally, Cherry said.
[snip]
Michael Silver, an analyst at Gartner, agrees: “Joe Consumer is not generally equipped to upgrade an operating system. This is not a trivial matter.” The market researcher estimates that roughly 40 percent of the 320 million consumer PCs worldwide running a previous version of Windows can run some version of Vista.
However, “some portion of that (percentage) will need at least memory upgrades,” Silver said. Moreover, he estimates that only about 15 percent of those PCs are ready to run Vista Premium and take full advantage of the software. But it’s hard to predict how each individual PC will fare during Vista installation.
Hmm, only 40% of current Windows machines can run the basic version, and only 15% of that group will be able to run the second level, Premium. Sounds like a marketing plan to sell hardware. Almost every level of the product requires some new and expensive additional hardware. The Premium version wants 15 gigabytes of free disk space. Some of the levels require Internet access.
Of course, when you buy a new computer, they will probably pre-load this, so it may be time to look at Macs and Linux.
16 comments
My PC can’t even run the basic version. Even if it could I object to the way we are ripped off here. what would cost dollars in the US costs pounds in the UK…
Thank, Bryan.
This has taken some of the warm glow off my recent computer purchase. However, considering the requirements my new machine had to run the 3D programs I have, Vista Home Premium should not be a problem – assuming Dell doesn’t screw up my order this time.
I was not keen on being forced to accept Vista, and I’m going to be mighty peeved if Poser and Bryce don’t run under it.
Is downgrading a system a possibility?
The reality is that you don’t buy a machine to run the operating system, you buy it run applications. All of these “improvements” generally use more resources and slow down your machine. The animated features really drag down speed.
The price differential is absurd in the UK, all they have to do is run the text through a British English spelling check, not exacting an overwhelming cost.
If you had a valid copy of Windows XP, you could back off and install XP, Anya, but actual CDs with the operating system on them are rare. The back-up I have can’t be used for a full install from scratch, which will result in some nasty e-mails if I have a problem. Too many software makers jump on the upgrade platform and require you to upgrade their programs to use them on the new versions of Windows.
The last OS upgrade I performed was Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. It worked, and I got a couple more years out of an already ancient machine, but I vowed never to do an OS upgrade again.
I suppose I eventually will have to buy a PC with Vista on it, but first on my list is a bare-bones PC on which I intend to install Linux. Perhaps I’ll do that once February is over… call it the March of the Penguin.
I’ve had it with the control freaks at Microsoft, other than what I need for my livelihood. When a vendor grows powerful enough to offer a product with an automated kill switch in it, I have to push back. As the judge in the Sony rootkit case put it, it may be their intellectual property, but it’s my computer.
Example, the latest upgrade of IE has played hell with my camera software. Like too many people, the camera software uses IE for some of its functions, but it depended on things being in certain directories, and IE changed its directory structure between 6 and 7. I don’t use the software to do anything except download from the camera, so I have bothered to really investigate the problem, and I don’t trust IE, so I haven’t finished the upgrade install. Screw them.
The user license for Vista was unilaterally changed and I won’t go along with it, any more than I will go along with the new terms of service for the Blogger upgrade. If I buy it, it’s mine. After I have purchased it, if you want it back, you have to refund the purchase price.
Bill is having a hard time understanding who owns what when, and the first time the “kill switch” is triggered on the wrong person, Microsoft is going to have to pay. Their software license is unenforceable in any US court as written because it fails to recognize the basic right of ownership.
Linux is the future because Microsoft thinks users are serfs.
My worry is not so much that Vista will refuse to run Bryce and Poser, but that these programs, being so focused and specialized, will require certain things of the OS that will have changed between XP and Vista. I have no idea what that might be, but there’s always that chance.
My one ray of hope is that Bryce 5 (the last version) runs adequately on Win98, even though it supposedly requires at least Win2000, and preferably XP. It’s major malfunction is my midget, over-crowded hard drive for its interminable swapping routine. I think that Bryce 6 is basically the same program with additional modules for more functions.
I haven’t a clue how Poser 7 will run; it’s changed publishers a couple of times since I purchased Poser 4.
However, both these programs a written to run under Windows of some sort, and under the Mac OS. Switching to Linux is not an option for me.
….
What’s a “kill switch”? =:-o
The better graphics programs don’t rely on operating system resources to perform their tasks, only to access the hardware. The hardware routines wouldn’t have changed all that much. Generally the request for a specific level of Windows means that they want to use expanded capabilities in addressing hardware, and there are no major expansions between XP and Vista.
Linux was definitely not designed to be nice to designers.
The “kill switch” is the ability of Microsoft to disable the operating system by sending a code over the Internet. It is a stupid function, included to “fight piracy.” They are going to be in major trouble if they use it, and even worst if someone hacks the code and starts shutting people down.
When Vista was first released to the business community back in the fall “The NY TImes”
ran a couple articles about the initial response. It was lukewarm at best.
TinkerToy PolyTechnic just hired a new IT manager…this guy is so full of himself. I’ve already had a run in with him over, of all things, furniture for disabled students. However, his big vision is to remove all the adaptive software we are running all over campus (highly specialized programs like Zoomtext, Kurzweill, etc) for our students and replace them with the “features” that Vista offers. This should make for an interesting fight.
I am already starting to get .docx and .pptx files. Microsoft’s Mac BU won’t have a converter to market until late spring or more likely this summer. iWork ’06 can’t read that format – hopefully iWork ’07 will but that’s not much help to me now. In the meantime, I had a co-worker download the Windows converter, but it didn’t work on his machine. He’s running Office 2000 so maybe that was throwing a glitch, we don’t know. Another co-worker has a more recent version of Office and was successful in getting the converter to run. The upshot of dealing with the new! improved! Office is that an old fashioned .doc and .ppt version now reside on the shared drive so we can all access the client’s documents. Thank you Microsoft. (and yes, I know the client could have output as .doc before sending, but trust me, that would be a technologically advanced concept so it was easier to convert on our end. ugh)
CG, I volunteered my time making computers accessible for people with brain and spinal cord injuries. I installed and configured peripherals like the Head Mouse, and the Brain Mouse for people with limited movement. I worked with a number of different screen readers for the visually impaired, who got screwed over when GUI replaced text.
MicroSoft isn’t even close to providing accessibility to these people. They don’t have the research or the testing facilities to know what will work for people with ALS or MS. If Stephen Hawking switches to unmodified Vista, then I might believe they have accomplished something. I have look at the capabilities built into Windows with each new version, and haven’t seen much worth dealing with unless you’re a Boomer who can’t find their reading glasses at the moment.
Alice, if you want to find out more about your client’s computer than you want to know, look at those files in a straight text program. The newer versions of Office include computer names, author’s name, and file locations with every document they create. I considered my disk structure to be a security issue, so I don’t send .doc to anyone, and .ppt is the spawn of the devil creating idle hands and empty minds, but then I once had to sit through dog and pony shows on a regular basis.
LOL re: your .ppt comment. So very, very true and yet for some reason, business people think it’s is the best thing since sliced bread (except those who have read Tufte, that is). Don’t get me started.
Switching to Linux is not an option for me. – Anya
Something to keep an eye on: Ubuntu Studio. It’s early days yet, and it looks as if they’re developing the audio end of things first, but there may be a day when switching to Linux IS an option for you. Of course, the tools available will not be Bryce and Poser, but someone’s idea of equivalent software. That’s the price you pay for “free” open software.
Steve: Speaking of open software, I just downloaded OpenOffice 2.1 as a possible replacement for the Micro$oft suite in the event I have issues with, ahem, non-standard software.
OOo seems OK, but it has issues with importing MS files, the word processor is missing some of the functions I use a lot, and the database is not very intuitive for Access slaves. The help file is not especially helpful either.
I suppose OOo is OK for folks who just dabble, but it’s frustrating for power users.
Anya, I installed OOo on my laptop rather than purchasing a second license for MS Office. OOo meets all my needs on that machine… I’ve found only one oddity in opening a .doc file, and it has successfully opened all the .xls files I’ve tried… but I am anything but a power user of office software.
There are many alternatives to MS Office out there, including even some that are web-based. I chose OOo for several reasons, most of them pretty obvious:
* It’s free.
* It opens .doc files up through Word 2000 for reading/writing. Most of my clients are standardized on that file format even if they license later versions of Word.
* It opens .xls files with no hassle. I never create or update such files, but my clients often send them to me containing design-related documents.
* It has corporate support from just about everybody EXCEPT Microsoft.
* Its native file formats work cross-platform; those formats are on the verge of becoming an official standard.
* Did I mention it’s free?
I agree that OOo Base is vastly inferior to MS Access. But I’m a power user of Access, both working within its .mdb files and using it as a front end for “real” databases like MSSQL and Oracle, so I have higher standards… as you do for the word processor.
I suspect it’s just one of those things… if OOo meets your needs, great; if not, you shell out (and I’m not talking opening a command prompt) for MS Office.
Yet another problem of having too much control in the hands of one company. There need to be universally agree standards so document and information exchange is not a matter of conversion. I have Office 2000, because a client wanted to use it, but I was satisfied with what I could do with Office 95.
I remember ACCESS as a failed communications program from Microsoft in the days of Windows 3.1. They reused the name for a problematic database program. Of course, I remember when Microsoft’s best selling product was a Z-80 card for Apple ][‘s that allowed Apple users to run CP/M.
After a series of events too unwieldy to be related here, I was finally able to finalized my computer purchase.
My new machine will be loaded with Vista Home Basic, which doesn’t use the animated Aero GUI. Fine by me: I want my resources to go to running my programs. I don’t plan to entertain myself by watching my interface do backflips; I have better things to do.
What ever happened to the KISS Principle, anyway?
=:-o