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Windows 7 — Page 4

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lordjedi said:

First, those timelines aren't changed each year.  MS releases an OS and each OS gets the exact same type of support.  Vista's support will probably end sometime in 2012, but I haven't looked at the timeline for it, so don't quote me on that.

Second, Windows 2000, XP, and Vista are not very similar in their source codes.  Windows 2000 is close to XP, but neither are close to Vista.  Vista isn't even close to Windows 2003.  The biggest change in Vista was with the driver model.  The video drivers were completely rewritten.  Those changes could not be backported without completely rewriting the driver model in XP.  That would end up making XP just like Vista, which would be pointless from Microsoft's perspective (it was nearing it's end of life as it was).

I wasn't really speaking in terms of planned OS time lines or what Microsoft defines as support. I'm talking about the kind of reasonable functionality support we'd get if Microsoft had a competitor or two that were able to earn some of their business. As it is, there aren't really any practical ways for me to run my software or programs on a different operating system made by another company and, as such, Microsoft has less incentive to make me happy. My programs work in 2000, XP, and Vista yet Microsoft limits me to go with the last one or else pay a price.

It's interesting how you mention Vista's re-written driver model since that's a perfect example of what I'm saying here. I'm sure the brand new driver model for Vista is really cool (and stuff) and I don't begrudge Microsoft wanting to make money for their work there. However, newer hardware effects don't ultimately rely upon a "driver model" to work. There's no reason XP's driver system couldn't have given gamers access to the latest, 3D-hardware driven, graphical effects. Even if it didn't work as well as what Vista offers, it wouldn't be hard for Microsoft to expand functionality in this tiny way.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Tiptup said:

I wasn't really speaking in terms of planned OS time lines or what Microsoft defines as support. I'm talking about the kind of reasonable functionality support we'd get if Microsoft had a competitor or two that were able to earn some of their business. As it is, there aren't really any practical ways for me to run my software or programs on a different operating system made by another company and, as such, Microsoft has less incentive to make me happy. My programs work in 2000, XP, and Vista yet Microsoft limits me to go with the last one or else pay a price.

No they don't.  If your stuff works just fine on XP or 2000, then stay with that.  If you're worried about needing to reinstall and reactivate, just clone your drive so you have a spare.  The only time you'd really have to pay is if you ever needed support for 2000 or XP.  I don't think I've ever known anyone that actually had to call Microsoft about an issue with either OS.  99% of the time, if you find a problem, they've already released a fix or there's a workaround.

Tiptup said:

It's interesting how you mention Vista's re-written driver model since that's a perfect example of what I'm saying here. I'm sure the brand new driver model for Vista is really cool (and stuff) and I don't begrudge Microsoft wanting to make money for their work there. However, newer hardware effects don't ultimately rely upon a "driver model" to work. There's no reason XP's driver system couldn't have given gamers access to the latest, 3D-hardware driven, graphical effects. Even if it didn't work as well as what Vista offers, it wouldn't be hard for Microsoft to expand functionality in this tiny way.

It has nothing to do with the "latest 3D hardware driven, graphical effects".  Anyone that's seen comparisons of DX9 and DX10 can see that they look very similar.  The difference is in the actual code though.  DX10 makes those same effects much easier to program.  And since DX10 takes advantage of the newer driver model (which DX9 doesn't use), it's nearly impossible for XP to use DX10 without a major rewrite in the graphics driver subsystem.  Why do you think it took up to 6 months for Nvidia and ATI to release good Vista drivers?  They basically had to rewrite their existing drivers to work with the new subsystem.

Your comment about newer effects not needing to rely on a driver model to work is laughable.  Of course they rely on the drivers.  Without drivers, newer effects can't do anything.  As an example, just try running Bioshock on hardware that supports DX9, but doesn't support Shader Model 2.0.  You might be able to hack it and get it to work, but it doesn't work natively.  Same goes for Portal.  Without hardware support for SM 2.0, that game crashes after walking through the first Portal.

The differences between Vista's graphics driver model and XP's are not "tiny", they are monumental.  Again, this is why good drivers took so long to come out.  XP drivers actually made things slow on Vista.  Once good Vista drivers were out, speeds were comparable and sometimes better (talking about in game here).

I'm guessing that most of you don't program or at least don't program at a low level.  You'll never understand how something that looks very similar might be completely different under the hood.  You'll just keep sitting here and saying how they could easily make it work under whatever OS is your favorite at the time.  The reality is that unless you can actually see the code, you have no idea how easy or hard something is to implement.

 

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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 (Edited)
lordjedi said:

Your comment about newer effects not needing to rely on a driver model to work is laughable.

Okay. :)

DirectX 10 gives access to hardware-based effects that the latest version of DirectX 9 won't allow gamers to access. (DirectX 9 is the highest Microsoft will allow XP to go.) For Microsoft to claim that they can't support those effects in DirectX 9 is laughable. For you to claim it wouldn't be possible for them to "easilly" support those effects in DirectX 9 is also laughable to me. :)

Edit: Your other points are worthless to me. If you like the amount of money you have to pay to Microsoft to get your new hardware and software to work every three years or so, you can do that and I won't care. I expect a bit more support for a piece of software that costs me over a hundred dollars to purchase.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Tiptup said:
lordjedi said:

Your comment about newer effects not needing to rely on a driver model to work is laughable.

Okay. :)

DirectX 10 gives access to hardware-based effects that the latest version of DirectX 9 won't allow gamers to access. (DirectX 9 is the highest Microsoft will allow XP to go.) For Microsoft to claim that they can't support those effects in DirectX 9 is laughable. For you to claim it wouldn't be possible for them to "easilly" support those effects in DirectX 9 is also laughable to me. :)

Edit: Your other points are worthless to me. If you like the amount of money you have to pay to Microsoft to get your new hardware and software to work every three years or so, you can do that and I won't care. I expect a bit more support for a piece of software that costs me over a hundred dollars to purchase.

Your first comment is totally inaccurate.  Read what I wrote again.  DX9 gives access to the same effects, the difference is that DX10 makes those effects easier to do.  DX10 does have some more advanced effects, but games like Bioshock, Crysis, and Company of Heroes look the same in both DX9 and DX10.  Anyone that has taken screenshots has seen little to no difference.  There are a couple of games coming that will be DX10 only, but it remains to be seen how well they do.

MS is not claiming they can't support those effects.  As I've already said, DX9 supports those effects.  You may think backporting DX10 to XP isn't that hard, but you also don't know the code.  I've seen whitepapers from MS that show the difference between the driver models in XP and Vista.  Again, they would have to completely rewrite the driver model in XP in order for it to work.  It wouldn't be a little patch, it would be a major change, probably involving a service pack.  DX10 hooks into the drivers in a completely different way that is faster and more efficient.  XP is 7 years old now.  It's just not worth the effort to do it.

I don't have to pay anything extra to MS every 3 years to get my new hardware and software to work.  My current hardware works just fine in XP right now.  It'll work fine in XP 3 years from now.  My old video card ran in XP for 2 years and still works to this day.  Any new video card that supports DX10 will also support DX9, so it'll work just fine.  I didn't pay MS any money to make any of it work.  In fact, I haven't paid any money to MS since I bought XP back in 2001.

You expect more support?  Hey genius, try going to Apple and getting support on OS 9.  I bet they don't do it.  Getting support from MS for XP is the same thing.  It's an outdated OS that has run its course.  Just because you still think it's worth supporting doesn't mean it is.  I know people that are still running Windows 98.  I don't expect MS to support them anymore either.  Windows 98 is an insecure piece of junk.

You're all basically arguing against a company improving their product, which is totally funny.  A few years ago, you were probably bitching that Vista still wasn't out and that XP was getting old.  Now I hear the same complaints about Vista that I heard about XP when it was released.  I'm sure when Windows 7 comes out, we'll hear about how great Vista is and how much Windows 7 sucks in comparison.  It's pretty much a neverending cycle.

I'm not trying to convince any of you to upgrade.  That's your choice if you want to or not.  But don't try to say that MS is forcing you to upgrade.  You don't have to do it.  Go use Linux or some other alternative.  No one's making you upgrade anything.

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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 (Edited)
lordjedi said:

Your first comment is totally inaccurate.  Read what I wrote again.  DX9 gives access to the same effects, the difference is that DX10 makes those effects easier to do.

I've been researching parts for a new computer the last few months and one of the reasons I was planning on getting Vista was because I've read that DirectX 10 would be supporting newer, hardware-based effects that XP won't have access to without updates to DirectX 9. Here's one of the effects that I was led to believe this about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometry_shader

Now, maybe you're just a lot smarter than all of the news and information sources I've been looking at, and if that's the case then I'm obviously misinformed, but last I checked you won't be getting support for that effect XP. If all of the sources I looked at are correct, then considering how Microsoft was actually still selling XP when they released their support for "geometry" shading, I don't see why XP couldn't have been given support for that effect too.

 

lordjedi said:

 

You may think backporting DX10 to XP isn't that hard, but you also don't know the code.  I've seen whitepapers from MS that show the difference between the driver models in XP and Vista.



Why do you keep talking about me as if I want DirectX 10 put into XP? I've already said that if Microsoft did a lot of work on a newer version of DirectX that I'm fine with them keeping it native to Vista only. This line of yours is really starting to bug me. I hate it when people don't read what I'm saying.

I just want the same support for the newer hardware effects since I think XP is a superior OS. If that desire of mine is misinformed (and XP already supports every possible effect that Vista will support), and you can prove that, then I am corrected and we can move on. Until then, I'm going to think this is an easy way Microsoft could continue supporting XP (and
should if they want happy customers).


lordjedi said:

You expect more support?  Hey genius, try going to Apple and getting support on OS 9.  I bet they don't do it.  Getting support from MS for XP is the same thing.  It's an outdated OS that has run its course.


I don't "expect" more support for XP; I
want more support for XP. If Microsoft wants me to be a happy customer (which is up to me to decide in a truly free market), then it would be wise for them to give Windows XP a little more support.

And, hey, genius, in your opinion XP is an outdated OS that has run its course, but I'm a different person and my opinion can be different. The best way to deal with different opinions, from people like me, is to discuss them rationally and not say the same thing over and over.

Seriously, lj, do you think game manufacturers are stupid chumps for supporting their games with patches many years after they come out? Is Blizzard a stupid company for still upgrading StarCraft after practically ten years? The kinds of small support I'm asking for aren't extreme. The free market has space for many different ideas of software support (assuming the free market is functioning) and for you to demonize me for wanting more support is getting really silly. (You're giving me a headache.)


lordjedi said:
A few years ago, you were probably bitching that Vista still wasn't out and that XP was getting old.

No, actually, I wasn't, you obnoxious fruitcake. Where is there any evidence for you to go off assuming something like that about me? XP is perhaps the best version of Windows I have ever used and I was one of the people who bought it on the day it was released. (XP has always been a fantastic product to me.) The few times I've used Vista I've found it to be a piece of shit by comparison. Beyond the fact that it is clearly less stable (I had no major errors or restarts with XP from the very start), having to tell it that I want to wipe my ass all the time (or be bothered by a security message every two seconds) is absurd. I just don't like it at all and I don't see who you are to fucking reprimand me for making that personal judgment. (Only lordjedi's personal judgments of what's desirable or undesirable are allowed in this world?)

Seriously, I don't care if you have a love affair with Vista. So, why, then, do you feel so keen on lecturing others for
not liking Vista? What on earth is making your blood boil so much with this issue? (I have no fucking desire to have a heated debate about Windows for crying out loud.)


lordjedi said:

 

I'm not trying to convince any of you to upgrade.  That's your choice if you want to or not.  But don't try to say that MS is forcing you to upgrade.  You don't have to do it.  Go use Linux or some other alternative.  No one's making you upgrade anything.

Huh? You've just made three long posts about how horrible a person I am for wanting XP to have some more support and for thinking Vista isn't absolutely worth the money. That certainly sounds to me like you're trying to tell us all what's a good or bad decision.

Also, nowhere am I saying that Microsoft is really
forcing me to "upgrade" in any absolute sense (that's absurd and you're clearly not reading what I'm saying here). My criticisms with Microsoft (and supposedly "upgrading" their products) are far smaller than that.

I have no problem with old software dying when its time comes in the free market. It's all the little things that Microsoft does to influence that transition that bother me as a customer. The way that I can no longer purchase a new, decently priced copy of XP or some equivalent OS is another good example. Linux and the other OSs on the market are not an alternative XP. If there were truly an operating system being sold in the market that works and functions just like XP, then I can assure you that I would be purchasing that. However, there is no operating system on the market like it and I see no good reason why. Why is there no OS selling on the market that can comparably perform just like Windows XP (running all the same software in the same way and so on)? Another company wouldn't make money by selling a Windows equivalent?

Anyways, if you can't tone down the aggressive and sarcastic statements you've been making in this thread then I'm simply going to start ignoring you, lordjedi. I really don't care about Microsoft that much. If you do, however, then I'm happy for you, but I'll simply be moving on. Thanks. :)

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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 (Edited)

by the way,

of course DX11 will be on its way, and probably be around by

the time windows 7 comes out...

 

so all this talk about porting back support will probably be

a moot point at that time..

 

i don't do low-level device programming, but i have worked

in the pc graphics industry, and the only way they can continue

to profit, is to work with the hardware vendors on continous

upgrades for both..

 

so you're always going to be forced to get new hardware

to support the new features, and write new software to

support them......

 

yeah, you can stay a few generations behind, but then

most new games won't work....

 

I HATE XP'S SUPPORT FOR OLDER GAMES>...... i have a ton of

games that ONLY WORK in windows 95 with the WinG library,

and games that ONLY WORK with windows 98, and most of

them NEVER worked properly or at all using the compatibilty

settings on XP..or running in the Command window..

yeah, i know dosBOX works great for stuff now, and there

are other emulators, but i found it easier just to use an older

computer, and older graphic card with a dual boot windows95/98..

 

XP's support for graphics and games was TERRIBLE until at least

service pack 2 came out.. SP3 isn't much of an improvement..

yeah, so i'm now stuck with new games THAT only work with VISTA,

so my new computer dual-boots XP/VISTA when i want to run games

on that... most newer games work better with VISTA and terrible with

XP....even with the same graphics card... i have an NVIDA 8600 w/256Meg RAM,

and the effects/framerates are better in VISTA for most of the games i've played

(arcade simulation / racing / lego star wars / virtua tennis 3 / etc etc )...

 

i'll NEVER go back to XP for games, unless i'm forced too..

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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Tiptup said:
lordjedi said:

Your first comment is totally inaccurate.  Read what I wrote again.  DX9 gives access to the same effects, the difference is that DX10 makes those effects easier to do.

I've been researching parts for a new computer the last few months and one of the reasons I was planning on getting Vista was because I've read that DirectX 10 would be supporting newer, hardware-based effects that XP won't have access to without updates to DirectX 9. Here's one of the effects that I was led to believe this about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometry_shader

Now, maybe you're just a lot smarter than all of the news and information sources I've been looking at, and if that's the case then I'm obviously misinformed, but last I checked you won't be getting support for that effect XP. If all of the sources I looked at are correct, then considering how Microsoft was actually still selling XP when they released their support for "geometry" shading, I don't see why XP couldn't have been given support for that effect too.

Sorry, I guess I simplified it to much.  I didn't mean that DX10 wouldn't have any new effects that were unavailable in DX9, what I meant is that some of the effects in DX9 are just like the ones in DX10, but DX10 makes them easier to code.  So of course DX10 will have newer effects, just like DX9 had newer effects than DX8, and DX8 newer than 7, so on and so forth.

Just because they were still selling XP does not mean they were doing code for it (aside from patches and security updates).  Even XP SP3 just wrapped all the updates since SP2 and added a few networking enhancements from Vista into one package.  The point is that DX10 accesses display drivers in a completely different way which is incompatible with XPs driver model.  That is why DX10 is not available for XP.

Unless you're a gamer, DX10 isn't going to mean a whole lot to you.  Yes, it's faster and better than DX9, but I don't see that having a detrimental effect unless you're using your computer to play games.

lordjedi said:

 

You may think backporting DX10 to XP isn't that hard, but you also don't know the code.  I've seen whitepapers from MS that show the difference between the driver models in XP and Vista.



Why do you keep talking about me as if I want DirectX 10 put into XP? I've already said that if Microsoft did a lot of work on a newer version of DirectX that I'm fine with them keeping it native to Vista only. This line of yours is really starting to bug me. I hate it when people don't read what I'm saying.

I just want the same support for the newer hardware effects since I think XP is a superior OS. If that desire of mine is misinformed (and XP already supports every possible effect that Vista will support), and you can prove that, then I am corrected and we can move on. Until then, I'm going to think this is an easy way Microsoft could continue supporting XP (and
should if they want happy customers).

OK.  Then I'll put it this way.  MS did put a lot of work into DX10.  Just because it doesn't look like it to you and you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, doesn't mean they didn't put a lot of effort into it.

You're free to think XP is a superior OS.  You're wrong of course, but you're free to have that opinion.  Vista has improved support for multi-core CPUs, much better memory handling, and much better support for games.  And that's just the beginning of the improvements.  I've seen XP and Vista on the same modern hardware (Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, built-in video) and Vista was noticeably faster.  That was even before SP1 for Vista came out so I have no doubt that Vista is even faster with SP1.  On the same hardware, I was able to leave all of Vista's flashy effects turned on and not feel like the system was crawling.  When I do the same on XP, I always want to turn the effects off because I feel like the system is slowing way down.


 

lordjedi said:

You expect more support?  Hey genius, try going to Apple and getting support on OS 9.  I bet they don't do it.  Getting support from MS for XP is the same thing.  It's an outdated OS that has run its course.



I don't "expect" more support for XP; I
want more support for XP. If Microsoft wants me to be a happy customer (which is up to me to decide in a truly free market), then it would be wise for them to give Windows XP a little more support.

Microsoft's "support" for XP hasn't ended.  The only thing that ended is retail availability:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx


And, hey, genius, in your opinion XP is an outdated OS that has run its course, but I'm a different person and my opinion can be different. The best way to deal with different opinions, from people like me, is to discuss them rationally and not say the same thing over and over.

That's not my opinion though.  That's Microsoft's stated fact.  XP is outdated and has run its course.  Here's their support timeline:

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

As you can see, Support is still available for XP.  Just because you can't buy XP from a store (retail availability) or from MS, doesn't mean it isn't supported anymore.

Seriously, lj, do you think game manufacturers are stupid chumps for supporting their games with patches many years after they come out? Is Blizzard a stupid company for still upgrading StarCraft after practically ten years? The kinds of small support I'm asking for aren't extreme. The free market has space for many different ideas of software support (assuming the free market is functioning) and for you to demonize me for wanting more support is getting really silly. (You're giving me a headache.)

You're right, the free market does have many ideas of software support.  Which is why there are companies out there still support NT, even though Microsoft doesn't offer support.

To answer your question, without knowing what that patch fixed, I couldn't say if they're stupid or not.  If that patch only took a few man hours to work on, then no, they probably aren't stupid.  But if it took several weeks to do, then yes, I'd wonder why they worked on it.  With the success of WoW, I wouldn't understand them putting any extended effort into any of their legacy products.

The funny thing is, you can't BUY Starcraft from them without getting it as a digital download.  So why don't you go try to buy a 10 year old game (aside from a digital download) and see how easy it is?  I'm sure you could get a used copy, just like you can get a used copy of XP, but I seriously doubt you can find a new unopened box anywhere.

lordjedi said:
A few years ago, you were probably bitching that Vista still wasn't out and that XP was getting old.

 

No, actually, I wasn't, you obnoxious fruitcake. Where is there any evidence for you to go off assuming something like that about me? XP is perhaps the best version of Windows I have ever used and I was one of the people who bought it on the day it was released. (XP has always been a fantastic product to me.) The few times I've used Vista I've found it to be a piece of shit by comparison. Beyond the fact that it is clearly less stable (I had no major errors or restarts with XP from the very start), having to tell it that I want to wipe my ass all the time (or be bothered by a security message every two seconds) is absurd. I just don't like it at all and I don't see who you are to fucking reprimand me for making that personal judgment. (Only lordjedi's personal judgments of what's desirable or undesirable are allowed in this world?)

 

The comment was made because most of the people that bitch about Vista were the same people bitching about XP when it was first released and now they're professing how great XP is in comparison.  I remember the comments quite well.  XP was trash and 2000 was the best OS ever released.

Seriously, I don't care if you have a love affair with Vista. So, why, then, do you feel so keen on lecturing others for not liking Vista? What on earth is making your blood boil so much with this issue? (I have no fucking desire to have a heated debate about Windows for crying out loud.)

I haven't lectured anyone for not liking Vista.  I've asked people what programs they had trouble with.  I've explained that MS hasn't changed their support timeline or the retail availability timeline (aside from extending them) since they released XP.  What I don't like is people bitching about how MS is forcing them to get a newer version.  What I don't like is people saying how easy it would be to make newer graphics effects work in XP, when they clearly have no idea what's involved behind the scenes.

lordjedi said:

 

I'm not trying to convince any of you to upgrade.  That's your choice if you want to or not.  But don't try to say that MS is forcing you to upgrade.  You don't have to do it.  Go use Linux or some other alternative.  No one's making you upgrade anything.

Huh? You've just made three long posts about how horrible a person I am for wanting XP to have some more support and for thinking Vista isn't absolutely worth the money. That certainly sounds to me like you're trying to tell us all what's a good or bad decision.

Nice try.  I'm not saying you're a horrible person at all.  What I am saying is that I think it's unreasonable to expect MS to support such an old OS for so long.  No other company takes the beatings MS does when they announce the end of retail sales and the coming end of support.

Also, nowhere am I saying that Microsoft is really forcing me to "upgrade" in any absolute sense (that's absurd and you're clearly not reading what I'm saying here). My criticisms with Microsoft (and supposedly "upgrading" their products) are far smaller than that.

I have no problem with old software dying when its time comes in the free market. It's all the little things that Microsoft does to influence that transition that bother me as a customer. The way that I can no longer purchase a new, decently priced copy of XP or some equivalent OS is another good example. Linux and the other OSs on the market are not an alternative XP. If there were truly an operating system being sold in the market that works and functions just like XP, then I can assure you that I would be purchasing that. However, there is no operating system on the market like it and I see no good reason why. Why is there no OS selling on the market that can comparably perform just like Windows XP (running all the same software in the same way and so on)? Another company wouldn't make money by selling a Windows equivalent?

Uh, OS X running parallels?  OS X has comparable software for everything except gaming.  MS Office is available.  I'm sure there's an accounting package available.  I  don't know about any CAD packages.  Most Adobe software is available.  For the occasional package that isn't available, simply fire up parallels to run the software under XP or dual boot with bootcamp and XP.  There are alternatives.  I'm not saying I like them (I don't), but alternatives are there.

Microsoft has to make a business decision to either keep supporting old products in perpetuity or move on to newer technologies.  XP and Vista are no different than any other product in the past.  And since Microsoft has shareholders to answer to, they have to do what's best for their business, not necessarily what people think is best for the market place.

Continuing to support ancient products (remember, XPs support hasn't ended, just retail sales) can actually be detrimental to a company.  Just take a look at Novell.  They supported Netware 3.12 for what seemed like forever.  In fact, they supported it for so long that people didn't bother upgrading.  Why upgrade when it works and you can still get support?  Now look at them.  They're a shadow of their former selves.  If they had not waited so long to end support for an ancient product, they may have been able to get people to upgrade and at least been able to compete.  Instead, they ended up basically dropping Netware and becoming a Linux company.

With Windows 7 on the horizon, Microsoft is continuing to move forward.  If you want to stay with XP, feel free, no one's forcing an upgrade.  But if you want to take advantage of the newer features and enhancements in Vista and Windows 7 (touch screen capabilities, mmm), then you'll need to shell out some cash and upgrade.

I'm honestly still on XP, but that's because I'm lazy and don't feel like going through the trouble of making a complete backup of all my stuff, formatting my system partition, and installing Vista.  I like Vista.  I like it a lot.  But right now, it's a little bit to much trouble to bother installing.  If something ends up requiring it, then sure, I'll install it no problem.  Just like I upgraded to Win98 way back in the day in order to have better USB support because I was going to work on a USB project.  Just like I upgraded to XP because Adobe Premiere wouldn't work on Win2k and XP had better support for FireWire.

EDIT: If you want XP so bad, go buy it http://www.google.com/products?q=windows+xp+professional&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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 (Edited)

Alright, well, since you got nicer in your last reply, lordjedi, I guess I'll continue the discussion:

lordjedi said:

Sorry, I guess I simplified it to much.  I didn't mean that DX10 wouldn't have any new effects that were unavailable in DX9, what I meant is that some of the effects in DX9 are just like the ones in DX10, but DX10 makes them easier to code.  So of course DX10 will have newer effects, just like DX9 had newer effects than DX8, and DX8 newer than 7, so on and so forth.

Just because they were still selling XP does not mean they were doing code for it (aside from patches and security updates).  Even XP SP3 just wrapped all the updates since SP2 and added a few networking enhancements from Vista into one package.  The point is that DX10 accesses display drivers in a completely different way which is incompatible with XPs driver model.  That is why DX10 is not available for XP.

Unless you're a gamer, DX10 isn't going to mean a whole lot to you.  Yes, it's faster and better than DX9, but I don't see that having a detrimental effect unless you're using your computer to play games.

I guess that makes sense that an effect not directly supported by DirectX 9 can still be coded to run under DirectX 9. However, that seems to support my argument if you ask me. If a game can still run "Geometry Shading" under DirectX 9 when it isn't directly and specifically supported by Direct X 9, then it seems to me that Microsoft could have thrown together a quick update of DirectX 9 that could have automatically done that job for game designers.

Otherwise, DirectX 10, with its faster, re-designed system sounds nice, and the fact that it is not being implemented into XP is not something I'm complaining about. If Microsoft wants to make money for their hard work, then that makes perfect sense to me (as I've said a number of times now). It just seems to me that a specific effect directly supported by DirectX 10 could have been implemented in DirectX 9 (albeit in a slower, crappier way) without much trouble for Microsoft's part.

If you're telling me that the coding of specific support for a specific effect like geometry shading is too difficult for Microsoft to do in DirectX 9, then I'll take your word on that (since you clearly know more about this issue than I do). However, if such a change would have been an easy and small thing for their part (which I was previously guessing), and you're simply arguing to me that Microsoft should in no way, whatsoever, feel obligated to their customers to implement such a small item of support, then that's something that I'll have to disagree with you about (which I'll argue about in a bit here).

Though, let me just say, again, before I move on, that I'm not talking about XP getting all (or even most) of DirectX 10's improvements (with all of its increased speed and whatever else), I'm just talking about some kind of direct support for a specific hardware-based effect being put into DirectX 9. If that's not an accurate view of something like "Geometry Shading" (since you'd need practically all of Direct X 10 to have it) or if it's simply not possible to implement direct support for that kind of effect in DirectX 9 easily (it would practically need a complete reworking of DirectX 9), then I'll simply take your word on that and move on. All I ask is that you stop wasting my time with arguments that I am not making. Thank you.

 

lordjedi said:

OK.  Then I'll put it this way.  MS did put a lot of work into DX10.  Just because it doesn't look like it to you and you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, doesn't mean they didn't put a lot of effort into it.

You're free to think XP is a superior OS.  You're wrong of course, but you're free to have that opinion.  Vista has improved support for multi-core CPUs, much better memory handling, and much better support for games.  And that's just the beginning of the improvements.  I've seen XP and Vista on the same modern hardware (Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, built-in video) and Vista was noticeably faster.  That was even before SP1 for Vista came out so I have no doubt that Vista is even faster with SP1.  On the same hardware, I was able to leave all of Vista's flashy effects turned on and not feel like the system was crawling.  When I do the same on XP, I always want to turn the effects off because I feel like the system is slowing way down.

You see, lordjedi? What the fuck is that top paragraph about there? When did I say that it "doesn't look" to me like Microsoft "put a lot of work" into DX10? I've granted that possibility and virtually said the opposite quite a few times. Why are you making that argument with me? You're wasting my time with stupidity and I don't like stupidity. Please, start reading what I'm saying. Thank you.

Otherwise, if you want to argue that Vista is a superior OS (over XP) in terms of speed, support for multi-core cpus, memory handling, and whatever else, I'd probably agree with you on all of those points. I am not making an argument there. My problems with Vista touch on different issues.

I just got done helping a friend of mine wipe his whole Vista-run computer because the thing was buggy as hell. It was a Core2 Duo laptop with great hardware specs and yet he couldn't even get through an install of WoW on it. Even after I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Vista clean (and updated it with SP1), it still ran like crap. The computer restarts at odd points, slows down sometimes, and occasionally gets stuck at blank screens. Other Vista machines (desktops mostly) I've played around with have been buggy in other nasty ways (restarts, freezes, and other crap like that). XP, however, was stable from the day I began using it and is generally stable on every other machine I've seen it installed or played with it on. That's a big difference and an important issue to me. Are you saying that stability shouldn't matter to me?

And, I'm sorry, but have you noticed those shitty little messages asking you to confirm every little simple action in Vista? Microsoft didn't even implement a "don't ever ask me about this again" option! It's an incredibly obnoxious feature! From that crappy, needless chore alone I will have to warn you not to argue that Vista is "superior" to XP in every last way. If you try to tell me that it's a good thing for an OS to have because it protects stupid people, I'll simply have to laugh at you. A horribly stunted interface is not a decent trade off for the protection of dumb people.

 

lordjedi said:

Microsoft's "support" for XP hasn't ended.  The only thing that ended is retail availability:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

Ahh, so are you trying to tell me that Microsoft is "supporting" XP in every way it can? :)

I'm sorry, but even brand new products don't get absolute support and you know that. The question in this debate is what level of support would be an ideal balance for Microsoft to make the most short-term profits while preserving the long-term profits they'd get from happy customers (who won't get angry enough to rework our nation's patent laws for example). Getting cute and saying that there is a non-zero level of support is not helpful to that discussion. You know what I mean by "support" and I'd like to get back to discussing that real issue now. :)

 

lordjedi said:

XP is outdated and has run its course.  Here's their support timeline:

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

As you can see, Support is still available for XP.  Just because you can't buy XP from a store (retail availability) or from MS, doesn't mean it isn't supported anymore.

Retail availability is a kind of support. So, by definition, we cannot say that MS is "supporting" XP in at least that way, can we? There are other ways in which it is not being supported anymore too. This is a silly point of yours. ::yawn::

 

lordjedi said:

You're right, the free market does have many ideas of software support.  Which is why there are companies out there still support NT, even though Microsoft doesn't offer support.

To answer your question, without knowing what that patch fixed, I couldn't say if [Blizzard Entertainment is] stupid or not.  If that patch only took a few man hours to work on, then no, they probably aren't stupid.  But if it took several weeks to do, then yes, I'd wonder why they worked on it.  With the success of WoW, I wouldn't understand them putting any extended effort into any of their legacy products.

The funny thing is, you can't BUY Starcraft from them without getting it as a digital download.  So why don't you go try to buy a 10 year old game (aside from a digital download) and see how easy it is?  I'm sure you could get a used copy, just like you can get a used copy of XP, but I seriously doubt you can find a new unopened box anywhere.

Yes, you're finally talking about different ideas of support. Right. You're catching on to what I actually want to argue here. Good. Thank you.

Blizzard didn't devote a ton of time to getting StarCraft to work in XP (perfectly I might add). They didn't spend a lot of time on the small map updates that pleased StarCraft's large "professional" community (mostly in Korea). Their most recent patch to the game simply removed StarCraft's need for a CD-Key and I bet that didn't take them long either. Even just a few years ago they updated StarCraft to have some interface improvements and I'm willing to bet that wasn't even too much work for them. However, those improvements helped them sell more copies of the game, helped them to keep the "StarCraft" brand popular (in a competitive RTS environment), and generally kept their new and long-term customers happy. Those kinds of support have helped keep Blizzard to be the successful company it is today. They did little things to keep their customers happy.

In terms of buying StarCraft, Blizzard isn't selling it in stores anymore because they can't make money that way (people aren't buying it in stores enough for them to make a profit by selling physical copies). That doesn't bug me at all. That's the free market deciding that it doesn't want to buy new physical copies of the game anymore. However, if I and plenty of others still wanted to purchase new copies of the game in that way (for the appropriate amount of money), I'm sure Blizzard would still sell it like that (since they'd make money doing that), and if they didn't, that would make me as a fan and a customer displeased.

New copies of XP are being sold for a lot of money right now (nobody is doing that with copies of StarCraft). The reason for that is because it is still in high demand by people like me who want to purchase it. However, Microsoft has a high degree of control when it comes to helping force a free market to go against what it actually wants (for whatever reason) and, as a result, they don't really worry about any lost revenue from selling no new copies of XP or lost revenue from making unhappy customers. A company like Blizzard, on the other hand, isn't allowed to make that kind of a move if it wants to remain successful. A company like Blizzard has to work harder and be smarter than that because RTS games are a far less centralized product (and therefore the market is less controlled). In other words, Blizzard has to work harder to give people more and not give them less. Are you saying Microsoft's market behavior is more ideal?

 

lordjedi said:

The comment was made because most of the people that bitch about Vista were the same people bitching about XP when it was first released and now they're professing how great XP is in comparison.  I remember the comments quite well.  XP was trash and 2000 was the best OS ever released.

Well, I've never met any of those people and I hate it when people assume things about me. In the first place it wastes my time. Beyond that, it clearly shows you're being stupid when it comes to substantially reading what I'm saying in this thread. You're smarter than that, though, and you're clearly assuming such stupid things about me because you desire to use aggression to win your arguments (for whatever reason) and that makes me angry (since it doesn't care about fairness or accuracy).

XP was a fantastic operating system in my mind (from its beginning) and Vista has been a much more troublesome experience for me by comparison. Maybe that's not what most people have encountered and therefore my Vista experiences have just been a run of bad luck, but I would have a lot of trouble believing that. That's not a crime on my part and I think the impatience and belligerence you expressed in your earlier posts were uncalled for.

I'm not some anti-Microsoft kook and I am not an idiot. I don't believe I treated you that way in this thread. How would you like it if I had said stuff like this to you:

"You're probably one of those idiots that has always sucked Microsoft's cock in that you've absolutely loved every product and move they've ever made as a company."

Certain expressions are uncalled for and demeaning if you ask me. In fact, I'm not even all that apposed to Vista as a product. (I was planning on getting a copy before Windows 7 was announced.) I'm just expressing some slight resentment over my options being so limited. Overall, however, I appreciate the good company that Microsoft is and think they deserve their position in the market by doing a good job (I just would be happier if they could be even better and that's what I'd like to discuss with you). Talking with you about the absurd, extreme viewpoints of "most of the people" you talk to is not something I care at all to do.

 

lordjedi said:

Seriously, I don't care if you have a love affair with Vista. So, why, then, do you feel so keen on lecturing others for not liking Vista? What on earth is making your blood boil so much with this issue? (I have no fucking desire to have a heated debate about Windows for crying out loud.)

I haven't lectured anyone for not liking Vista.  I've asked people what programs they had trouble with.  I've explained that MS hasn't changed their support timeline or the retail availability timeline (aside from extending them) since they released XP.  What I don't like is people bitching about how MS is forcing them to get a newer version.  What I don't like is people saying how easy it would be to make newer graphics effects work in XP, when they clearly have no idea what's involved behind the scenes.

Okay, well, first, I am not being unappreciative of the remaining support that Microsoft still gives to Windows XP. I am not being unappreciative of the fact that each new OS has a realistic lifetime in our free market. I am not unappreciative of all the hard work Microsoft does when it creates a new OS like Vista that is admittedly better in some ways. I certainly don't have a problem with Microsoft trying to make profits with all of the good things they do. I have not argued otherwise and for you to argue with me as if I were is getting really, really old.

Second, to the degree that what I am complaining about is wrong and misinformed on my part, I'm willing to let you (or someone else) correct me. I'll admit that you probably know a hell of a lot more about these issues than I do. However, I will not change my opinions because someone tries to accuse me of being an ingrate.

And, seriously, you have been "lecturing" me for not liking Vista. You've gone out of your way to turn my arguments into absurd straw men before moving on to tell me how supposedly stupid or spoiled I must be for believing them. Nowhere have I made statements as extreme as those portrayals, however. I must conclude, therefore, that you want to attack me for simply having problems with Microsoft and that's weird to me. Do you have some personal stake in Microsoft to explain your sensitivity on this issue?

Are you trying to tell me, lordjedi, that you have absolutely no problems with Microsoft whatsoever or in any way? Are you telling me it's unfair for laypeople like me to have opinions based on my own experiences? I've built and set up many computers and worked with a lot of different hardware and different versions of Windows for many years and I don't think I'm an idiot. I could be honestly wrong in many ways (I'm no coding expert), and certainly idiotic in some small ways here, but you went way overboard in your previous posts. I really have trouble believing that you think Microsoft is so perfect and so justified in everything that it has done in the free market that you have absolutely no problems with them whatsoever. If that's not the case, however, and you actualkly do think Microsoft could be better in some ways yourself, then why are you being so extreme in reprimanding someone like me who happens to have some problems of my own (that are based upon my own point of view)?

If we could discuss the issues I want to discuss, that would make me happiest here. For now, though, I have run out of time and must be moving on. You actually touched on some more substantive points further down in your post and I'll want to discuss them later. For now, though, if you want to reply to the useful parts of our discussion, feel free and I'll try to address them later as well.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

Author
Time
Tiptup said:

Though, let me just say, again, before I move on, that I'm not talking about XP getting all (or even most) of DirectX 10's improvements (with all of its increased speed and whatever else), I'm just talking about some kind of direct support for a specific hardware-based effect being put into DirectX 9. If that's not an accurate view of something like "Geometry Shading" (since you'd need practically all of Direct X 10 to have it) or if it's simply not possible to implement direct support for that kind of effect in DirectX 9 easily (it would practically need a complete reworking of DirectX 9), then I'll simply take your word on that and move on. All I ask is that you stop wasting my time with arguments that I am not making. Thank you.

Since no one but a Microsoft employee can see the source code of DirectX, we all have to pretty much assume that any new effects that are only available in DirectX 10 would require more effort than is worth for a simple patch.  Since the driver model was also completely rewritten, we also have to assume that any patch would be written in a completely different way for XP and would also be more trouble than it's worth.  It's probably something like a few weeks or months of work versus an hour or two of work.

You see, lordjedi? What the fuck is that top paragraph about there? When did I say that it "doesn't look" to me like Microsoft "put a lot of work" into DX10? I've granted that possibility and virtually said the opposite quite a few times. Why are you making that argument with me? You're wasting my time with stupidity and I don't like stupidity. Please, start reading what I'm saying. Thank you.

Your comments suggested that Vista didn't seem all that different from XP, just slower and buggier.  If that's not what you meant, then I'm sorry.

I just got done helping a friend of mine wipe his whole Vista-run computer because the thing was buggy as hell. It was a Core2 Duo laptop with great hardware specs and yet he couldn't even get through an install of WoW on it. Even after I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Vista clean (and updated it with SP1), it still ran like crap. The computer restarts at odd points, slows down sometimes, and occasionally gets stuck at blank screens. Other Vista machines (desktops mostly) I've played around with have been buggy in other nasty ways (restarts, freezes, and other crap like that). XP, however, was stable from the day I began using it and is generally stable on every other machine I've seen it installed or played with it on. That's a big difference and an important issue to me. Are you saying that stability shouldn't matter to me?

So he was trying to run WoW on a laptop?  What kind of video card does this laptop have?  Laptops are notoriously bad for games.  Read the system requirements of most any game in the past year.  They'll have a list of video chipsets that are supported, possibly even listing specific cards, and then they'll say "Laptop versions of these chipsets are not supported".

My guess would be, without knowing the full hardware specs, that the laptop is probably getting to hot or needed the video and audio drivers to be updated.  Typically, that's what causes games to either not run or to run very poorly.  Rarely does the problem come from the OS itself.

Again, laptops, even the ones with Nvidia or ATI graphics, really aren't designed for gaming.  It'll usually work if you have one of those chipsets, but you pretty much take your chances.  I'm going to assume you ended up putting XP on the machine and got it to work, even though you didn't state that.

And, I'm sorry, but have you noticed those shitty little messages asking you to confirm every little simple action in Vista? Microsoft didn't even implement a "don't ever ask me about this again" option!

Like I said, I only see these things when I'm installing software or changing system settings.  And they actually do have a setting for not asking you about it again.  It's called turning UAC off :P

It's an incredibly obnoxious feature! From that crappy, needless chore alone I will have to warn you not to argue that Vista is "superior" to XP in every last way. If you try to tell me that it's a good thing for an OS to have because it protects stupid people, I'll simply have to laugh at you. A horribly stunted interface is not a decent trade off for the protection of dumb people.

Laugh at me all you want.  I've even had times where I got the popup and wondered "what the hell?"  At which point I click Deny and then realize that whatever setup program I just tried to run tried to spawn some weird process with a completely different name.  The software's usually ok, but it throws me when it does it.  This is a good thing imo.  I want to know if some program is doing something weird.  I've worked on enough machines to know that if people had some kind of big, scary warning, their machine probably wouldn't have gotten screwed up to begin with.  That popup window alone would scare the crap out of my mom and cause her to call me, asking if whatever it was was safe to do.  Quite frankly, I'd rather get that call than the ones I get now where I hear "It's messed up and I don't know how it happened" because some damn ad on some website looks like a Windows warning message telling her her computer is infected so she clicks on it to clean it up.  The UAC warning would stop it every time.

OS X does something very similar.  When you try to install any software that needs to change system settings, it pops up a dialog asking for the admin password.  Why Vista gets such a bad rap for doing the same thing OS X does I'll never know.

lordjedi said:

Microsoft's "support" for XP hasn't ended.  The only thing that ended is retail availability:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

Ahh, so are you trying to tell me that Microsoft is "supporting" XP in every way it can? :)

I'm sorry, but even brand new products don't get absolute support and you know that. The question in this debate is what level of support would be an ideal balance for Microsoft to make the most short-term profits while preserving the long-term profits they'd get from happy customers (who won't get angry enough to rework our nation's patent laws for example). Getting cute and saying that there is a non-zero level of support is not helpful to that discussion. You know what I mean by "support" and I'd like to get back to discussing that real issue now. :)

What do you mean by absolute support?  If you have a problem with Vista, a brand new product, you can call Microsoft and receive installation support.  I believe they give you 90 days for free when you buy a copy.  After that, it's $250 per incident.  So what are we calling "absolute support"?

lordjedi said:

XP is outdated and has run its course.  Here's their support timeline:

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

As you can see, Support is still available for XP.  Just because you can't buy XP from a store (retail availability) or from MS, doesn't mean it isn't supported anymore.

Retail availability is a kind of support. So, by definition, we cannot say that MS is "supporting" XP in at least that way, can we? There are other ways in which it is not being supported anymore too. This is a silly point of yours. ::yawn::

Actually, I can.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16837116195  That's a retail copy of Windows XP Professional.  I didn't even know it was still available until yesterday when I received an email asking about it.  I don't know what other ways you're referring to, so I'll continue below.

 

lordjedi said:

You're right, the free market does have many ideas of software support.  Which is why there are companies out there still support NT, even though Microsoft doesn't offer support.

To answer your question, without knowing what that patch fixed, I couldn't say if [Blizzard Entertainment is] stupid or not.  If that patch only took a few man hours to work on, then no, they probably aren't stupid.  But if it took several weeks to do, then yes, I'd wonder why they worked on it.  With the success of WoW, I wouldn't understand them putting any extended effort into any of their legacy products.

The funny thing is, you can't BUY Starcraft from them without getting it as a digital download.  So why don't you go try to buy a 10 year old game (aside from a digital download) and see how easy it is?  I'm sure you could get a used copy, just like you can get a used copy of XP, but I seriously doubt you can find a new unopened box anywhere.

Yes, you're finally talking about different ideas of support. Right. You're catching on to what I actually want to argue here. Good. Thank you.

Blizzard didn't devote a ton of time to getting StarCraft to work in XP (perfectly I might add). They didn't spend a lot of time on the small map updates that pleased StarCraft's large "professional" community (mostly in Korea). Their most recent patch to the game simply removed StarCraft's need for a CD-Key and I bet that didn't take them long either. Even just a few years ago they updated StarCraft to have some interface improvements and I'm willing to bet that wasn't even too much work for them. However, those improvements helped them sell more copies of the game, helped them to keep the "StarCraft" brand popular (in a competitive RTS environment), and generally kept their new and long-term customers happy. Those kinds of support have helped keep Blizzard to be the successful company it is today. They did little things to keep their customers happy.

In terms of buying StarCraft, Blizzard isn't selling it in stores anymore because they can't make money that way (people aren't buying it in stores enough for them to make a profit by selling physical copies). That doesn't bug me at all. That's the free market deciding that it doesn't want to buy new physical copies of the game anymore. However, if I and plenty of others still wanted to purchase new copies of the game in that way (for the appropriate amount of money), I'm sure Blizzard would still sell it like that (since they'd make money doing that), and if they didn't, that would make me as a fan and a customer displeased.

New copies of XP are being sold for a lot of money right now (nobody is doing that with copies of StarCraft). The reason for that is because it is still in high demand by people like me who want to purchase it. However, Microsoft has a high degree of control when it comes to helping force a free market to go against what it actually wants (for whatever reason) and, as a result, they don't really worry about any lost revenue from selling no new copies of XP or lost revenue from making unhappy customers. A company like Blizzard, on the other hand, isn't allowed to make that kind of a move if it wants to remain successful. A company like Blizzard has to work harder and be smarter than that because RTS games are a far less centralized product (and therefore the market is less controlled). In other words, Blizzard has to work harder to give people more and not give them less. Are you saying Microsoft's market behavior is more ideal?

New copies of XP are being sold at a higher price because that's what Microsoft does.  That isn't exclusive to XP either.  Everytime Microsoft releases a new product, the cost of the old product goes up and the new product gets the previous or lower pricing.  That's just the way it is.  That's their way of encouraging people to adopt the new product.  They obviously only want to support the old stuff as long as necessary.  This is also why it gets difficult to find copies of the old stuff after a certain time.

Even Adobe just discontinued their CS3 line.  I had to buy Illustrator CS4 for work because I could not get CS3 from my supplier.

XP was a fantastic operating system in my mind (from its beginning) and Vista has been a much more troublesome experience for me by comparison. Maybe that's not what most people have encountered and therefore my Vista experiences have just been a run of bad luck, but I would have a lot of trouble believing that. That's not a crime on my part and I think the impatience and belligerence you expressed in your earlier posts were uncalled for.

You are correct.  When Vista was first released, it caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people.  But the same thing happened with XP.  At one of my first jobs, when the CFO tried to upgrade to XP, suddenly his printer and scanner would no longer work.  They worked find under Windows 2000, but there was simply no driver available for XP.  Maybe you had a great experience with XP from the getgo, but plenty of people had the same trouble with XP that they had with Vista.

I'm not some anti-Microsoft kook and I am not an idiot. I don't believe I treated you that way in this thread. How would you like it if I had said stuff like this to you:

"You're probably one of those idiots that has always sucked Microsoft's cock in that you've absolutely loved every product and move they've ever made as a company."

First, let me apologize for my previous comments.  You're right.  I shouldn't have said those things.  You're probably the only person I've ever talked to that didn't have trouble with XP on release, which is why I've been saying these things.

Second, I'd tell you that just 10 short years ago, I was a total anti-MS kook.  Everything MS said and did I looked at as just evil.  It was only in the last 6 or so years that I've started to actually like their products.  Windows 9x (including ME) was a piece of shit.  MS deserved all the blame they got for everything back then.

Of course, now I look at some of my OS X zealot friends and wonder what the hell they're thinking.  They always say "It just works".  To them I say "So does mine.  When you pay for quality, you get quality.  The difference is that I didn't need to spend twice the price of a PC to get quality, I just bought quality parts".

Anyway, that last part was more of a tongue in cheek response to the hypothetical question, so feel free to ignore it :)

lordjedi said:

Seriously, I don't care if you have a love affair with Vista. So, why, then, do you feel so keen on lecturing others for not liking Vista? What on earth is making your blood boil so much with this issue? (I have no fucking desire to have a heated debate about Windows for crying out loud.)

I haven't lectured anyone for not liking Vista.  I've asked people what programs they had trouble with.  I've explained that MS hasn't changed their support timeline or the retail availability timeline (aside from extending them) since they released XP.  What I don't like is people bitching about how MS is forcing them to get a newer version.  What I don't like is people saying how easy it would be to make newer graphics effects work in XP, when they clearly have no idea what's involved behind the scenes.

Okay, well, first, I am not being unappreciative of the remaining support that Microsoft still gives to Windows XP. I am not being unappreciative of the fact that each new OS has a realistic lifetime in our free market. I am not unappreciative of all the hard work Microsoft does when it creates a new OS like Vista that is admittedly better in some ways. I certainly don't have a problem with Microsoft trying to make profits with all of the good things they do. I have not argued otherwise and for you to argue with me as if I were is getting really, really old.

Second, to the degree that what I am complaining about is wrong and misinformed on my part, I'm willing to let you (or someone else) correct me. I'll admit that you probably know a hell of a lot more about these issues than I do. However, I will not change my opinions because someone tries to accuse me of being an ingrate.

And, seriously, you have been "lecturing" me for not liking Vista. You've gone out of your way to turn my arguments into absurd straw men before moving on to tell me how supposedly stupid or spoiled I must be for believing them. Nowhere have I made statements as extreme as those portrayals, however. I must conclude, therefore, that you want to attack me for simply having problems with Microsoft and that's weird to me. Do you have some personal stake in Microsoft to explain your sensitivity on this issue?

Nope.  As I said, and you're not going to like this, most of the time when I hear about complaints, it's from people who haven't used it.  Other forums, friends that only use OS X, etc, etc.  Since you have used it, I was hoping you could give some specifics about the situations you've had trouble with.  Telling someone "It runs like crap on this computer" without giving the system specs for that computer doesn't tell us a whole lot.  XP would run like crap on a system from 1995 (yes, I have heard of people trying to do this).  You've given partial specs, but not really the full thing.  At this point though, that's kind of irrelevant.

I simply do not like hearing people say how crappy something is and then later finding out that they were trying it on totally outdated hardware.  Sure, XP runs on it fine because it was released in 2001.  Vista requires a little more oomph.  Since you've obviously seen it run on much more modern hardware, then I'd have to assume there was a driver problem somewhere.  That is usually where the typical problem is.  People tend to not install the latest drivers (or even any drivers) for all their stuff.  They install Vista, it comes up and works (but it's slow), so they complain.

Having problems with UAC is a little strange.  For years people (not necessarily you) bitched about how insecure Windows was.  Now MS has added a layer of security and people bitch about how much of a pain it is.  None of this is actually Microsoft's fault.  For years they tried to convince developers to program their software "the right way".  For years, developers flat out ignored best practices because people could simply be made Local Admins.  Microsoft finally forced the issue with UAC.  Now developers are having to do it the right way or their program won't work or it'll launch a UAC prompt.  So finally, after many years of telling developers the right way to code for Windows, they're doing it in order to avoid the UAC prompt.  This, in my mind, is a Good Thing.

Are you trying to tell me, lordjedi, that you have absolutely no problems with Microsoft whatsoever or in any way? Are you telling me it's unfair for laypeople like me to have opinions based on my own experiences? I've built and set up many computers and worked with a lot of different hardware and different versions of Windows for many years and I don't think I'm an idiot. I could be honestly wrong in many ways (I'm no coding expert), and certainly idiotic in some small ways here, but you went way overboard in your previous posts. I really have trouble believing that you think Microsoft is so perfect and so justified in everything that it has done in the free market that you have absolutely no problems with them whatsoever. If that's not the case, however, and you actualkly do think Microsoft could be better in some ways yourself, then why are you being so extreme in reprimanding someone like me who happens to have some problems of my own (that are based upon my own point of view)?

Actually, I don't really have any problems with Microsoft, no.  The times when my own computer has had problems, it hasn't been related to Windows.  The one time when I nearly lost a lot of data, it was due to changing motherboards and then not reinstalling Windows with the different drivers.  I usually have more trouble with people (not necessarily you) that want to throw everything and the kitchen sink onto a single server and then bitch because it's slow or something else crashes from time to time.  I'm only just now being allowed to offload certain services to other servers because I and other consultants can tell my boss "the server is overloaded".

I have seen problems with Vista and XP.  But those problems are not because of Vista or XP.  Those problems are almost always (99%) driver related.  I've seen hardware fail and people immediately blame Microsoft and Windows.  How it was their fault that a hard drive died is beyond me.  I too have built and used a lot of different hardware.  I see plenty of hardware every day.  I get asked by coworkers about systems all the time.  I know what cheap hardware is, which is why if someone's having a problem, I ask them for their specs and I ask who made the hardware.  Invariably, the hardware is just cheap crap.  I tell them that if they'd just spend an extra $100 (total), that they wouldn't be having all the problems they're having.

The times when I've had lots of trouble with a computer, it was in fact the hardware.  I have no doubt that your experience may be different.  For me, every single time I've had trouble, it was not a problem with the software.

As for their business practices I'm quite happy that they actually layout a full support and availability timeline from the moment a product ships.  That let's me plan for upgrades and purchases.  The only thing I haven't been happy about is "Software Assurance", but that's only because they didn't release timely updates when they first introduced it.  If I did upgrades on a regular basis, Software Assurance would save me tons of money at work.  Since we only upgrade "when we need it", Software Assurance actually costs me more, so we don't do it.  We had one recent upgrade that cost us a ton because we didn't keep up with the software, but that wasn't from Microsoft, so I can't really get mad at them.

I was more pissed at Dell when Vista was made available because Dell immediately cut XP from their product line with no order from Microsoft.  It took a couple of months, but they did start reintroducing XP into their lineup and it wasn't until later that they had to get ready to cut XP because MS announced the end of availability (which was actually extended at least once).

I think I actually get more angry at cell phone companies.  They seem to have a 6 month product cycle.  So the phone you buy today probably won't be available a year from now.  Talk about an industry that's constantly pushing the "latest and greatest".

 

If we could discuss the issues I want to discuss, that would make me happiest here. For now, though, I have run out of time and must be moving on. You actually touched on some more substantive points further down in your post and I'll want to discuss them later. For now, though, if you want to reply to the useful parts of our discussion, feel free and I'll try to address them later as well.

I will do my best to not include comments like "Most people say that but have no experience with it".

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Yep. They're real fascinating too, I'm sure. :)

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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lordjedi said:

The funny thing is, you can't BUY Starcraft from them without getting it as a digital download. So why don't you go try to buy a 10 year old game (aside from a digital download) and see how easy it is? I'm sure you could get a used copy, just like you can get a used copy of XP, but I seriously doubt you can find a new unopened box anywhere.

WRONG! Every time I go into Wal-Mart I see this: Starcraft Battle Chest

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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Wow, the game is almost eleven years old and it's still making money for Blizzard with Wal-Mart shoppers. (Hopefully not the Wal-Mart shoppers that trample people.)

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Nanner Split said:
lordjedi said:

The funny thing is, you can't BUY Starcraft from them without getting it as a digital download. So why don't you go try to buy a 10 year old game (aside from a digital download) and see how easy it is? I'm sure you could get a used copy, just like you can get a used copy of XP, but I seriously doubt you can find a new unopened box anywhere.

WRONG! Every time I go into Wal-Mart I see this: Starcraft Battle Chest

That's the Battlechest.  You can't buy a standalone copy of Starcraft.  If we were to compare this to Microsoft, it would be like only wanting Word 2007, but being forced to buy the whole Office suite (even if it is for a lower price).

Also, I said I seriously doubted you could find it, I didn't say it was impossible.  I haven't seen that Battlechest anywhere in my area for some time.  The Battlechest is available, not as a download, from Blizzard's store as well.  So my point still stands.  You cannot buy the standalone version of StarCraft, at least not without getting it in a set.

EDIT: I see you can't even get StarCraft by itself from Blizzard anymore.  The lowest set is the StarCraft Anthology.  How did this get turned into a conversation on Blizzard's business practices anyway?  Just because they offered support for a really old product?  I've already stated that the support timeline for XP has not ended and that XP is available from online retailers, so I think this is a moot point.

 

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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lordjedi said:
Nanner Split said:
lordjedi said:

The funny thing is, you can't BUY Starcraft from them without getting it as a digital download. So why don't you go try to buy a 10 year old game (aside from a digital download) and see how easy it is? I'm sure you could get a used copy, just like you can get a used copy of XP, but I seriously doubt you can find a new unopened box anywhere.

WRONG! Every time I go into Wal-Mart I see this: Starcraft Battle Chest

That's the Battlechest.  You can't buy a standalone copy of Starcraft.  If we were to compare this to Microsoft, it would be like only wanting Word 2007, but being forced to buy the whole Office suite (even if it is for a lower price).

. . . so I think this is a moot point.

You didn't say a "standalone copy." You said it's only available by "digital download" and Nanner was merely correcting that specific statement of yours. (Also, I highly doubt he was trying to make any "point" about our discussion, so I think your last post was barking up the wrong tree there.)

Otherwise, the rest of what you said about StarCraft shows that you know nothing about the game (which you should if you're going to keep acting like you're an expert on every subject in the world). StarCraft is not StarCraft if you don't have the Brood War expansion (the campaign additions and the changes the expansion made to the core multiplayer game were immense). Your analogy equating StarCraft: Brood War to Microsoft Word and getting the whole, expensive Office Suite is lame and makes very little sense to me (StarCraft without Brood War would be more like settling for Windows 95's "Wordpad" and not even getting MS Word [or an equivalent] in the first place!).

At any rate, Brood War was released in the fall of 1998 so the combined product of that battle chest has been supported by Blizzard for over ten years now. If you think it's "moot" to say that Blizzard's product support doesn't outweigh Microsoft's product support, well . . . I guess you're allowed to think that, but it sounds silly to me. :)

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Tiptup said:
lordjedi said:

You didn't say a "standalone copy." You said it's only available by "digital download" and Nanner was merely correcting that specific statement of yours. (Also, I highly doubt he was trying to make any "point" about our discussion, so I think your last post was barking up the wrong tree there.)

Otherwise, the rest of what you said about StarCraft shows that you know nothing about the game (which you should if you're going to keep acting like you're an expert on every subject in the world). StarCraft is not StarCraft if you don't have the Brood War expansion (the campaign additions and the changes the expansion made to the core multiplayer game were immense). Your analogy equating StarCraft: Brood War to Microsoft Word and getting the whole, expensive Office Suite is lame and makes very little sense to me (StarCraft without Brood War would be more like settling for Windows 95's "Wordpad" and not even getting MS Word [or an equivalent] in the first place!).

At any rate, Brood War was released in the fall of 1998 so the combined product of that battle chest has been supported by Blizzard for over ten years now. If you think it's "moot" to say that Blizzard's product support doesn't outweigh Microsoft's product support, well . . . I guess you're allowed to think that, but it sounds silly to me. :)

I own StarCraft.  I've played it.  You don't need Brood War to play StarCraft.  I haven't played Brood War because I don't have it and really didn't care to continue it.  StarCraft is StarCraft whether you have Brood War or not.  Having StarCraft without Brood War would be like having Jedi Knight without Mysteries of the Sith.  You've still got Jedi Knight, you just don't have the rest of the story contained in the expansion.

StarCraft is likely only sold in the Battlechest and the Anthology simply because it's not economical for them to sell it standalone.  Just like any other game that has expansions (Half-Life and Star Wars Battlegrounds come to mind), they end up selling the whole thing as a set after they've been out for a while.  Of course, Half-Life can still be purchased standalone simply because everything Valve does is through Steam, but that's another story.

I really don't care if Blizzard's product support does go for longer than Microsoft's.  Blizzard can easily use the revenue from WoW to subsidize any calls they might get for StarCraft (which are probably few and far between).  When I think of support, I think of patches, a knowledgebase, and telephone support.  Microsoft is still providing all three for XP.  I don't think of a retail sale as "support".

 

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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THE NERD ALARM IS GOING OFF VERY LOUD IN HERE.....

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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This topic has gone on long enough. Thread Godwin'd.

 

http://www.insidesocal.com/godblog/Hitler.JPG

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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vbangle said:

THE NERD ALARM IS GOING OFF VERY LOUD IN HERE.....

 

 LOL, this is a Star Wars forum, there are ONLY nerds here!!! :) :) :)

Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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Arnie.d said:
vbangle said:

THE NERD ALARM IS GOING OFF VERY LOUD IN HERE.....

 

 LOL, this is a Star Wars forum, there are ONLY nerds here!!! :) :) :)

Star Wars has "fans" WOW has "WOW NERDS"

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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You're all welcome to not read it (not that I care either way).

Since when is a thread deemed "to long"?  The Politics thread is still going, so why not a discussion on the differences between XP and Vista?

Feel free to continue though :)

Last I checked vbangle, if someone's posting here (the board, not the thread), they're probably a nerd.  I personally prefer the term dork or geek myself.  Nerds typically have zero social skills.  I at least have some :P

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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I'll definitely be waiting for the final product.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Well, I got it downloaded, installed a separate partition from my Vista install on my Dell E6400 laptop. Got the product key Microsoft sent me entered and all is good so far. I've been using it since about 9 a.m. this morning and I will say that this OS is as smooth and quick as any I've seen. Even though I've got Aero on, it is running as quick as if I've got XP on here with no theme at all. The install was absolutely effortless and it even had prompts to setup my wifi connection. After starting the first time, the OS instantly downloaded all necessary updates and, surprisingly, all the necessary drivers for my machine, even the graphic card!

 

It took a little gettig used to a exploring things to see most of the changes, but I love them all so far.