AAAARGH! For the first time in my life, I actually go and
Defend Microsoft and Vista and they come out with this liberal namby-pamby apology for Vista. Gargh!
Listen: Vista is an evolution of Windows. Microsoft had a rigid schedule for releasing Operating Systems, and Vista slipped alot for one simple reason:
Other programmers,
not Microsoft have written cruddy code.
This is hard to appreciate if you are not a programmer, but it's true. Older versions of Windows... 3.11, NT3, 95, 98SE, etc, etc, etc had bugs and security holes in them that programmers
built around as
convenient ways to break the Windows Rules. There are certain specific ways you are supposed to write programs to make them run in Windows, but the fact was that the older computers could not handle the "adminning" necessary to make sure the programs all followed the rules. All those Bluescreens in 3.11 and 98? Programs breaking rules.
So what Microsoft has to do, every time they make a new Windows is
keep all the bugs and security holes intact so that old programs don't break! Does this sound sane to you? People complain that Microsoft knows about a bug but they don't fix it. THIS IS WHY. Patch that security vulnerability and suddenly McAfee Virus Scan no longer works. Consumers complain, and the next patch
opens the hole again.
In an attempt to finally make a secure Windows environment, Microsoft completely rebuilt Vista. This is why it was so delayed. It does a better job of "adminning." The delay wasn't caused by trying to make the program work
right, but to fudge ways to make Vista work
wrong so that older programs would work. And as anyone who's built a sandcastle and then tried to burrow a tunnel through it, when you cut holes in a structure it's less sound.
But there was one thing they couldn't compromise on: driver security. A driver, to continue the eGO Admin comparison, has the access of an eGO with server console access. Drivers actually run right next to Windows' core. But driver writers have been used to being able to cheat. Those blue screens from 98? Usually DRIVER CRASHES because drvers would cheat and knock the supporting walls out from under Windows. So Vista keeps drivers on a very short leash.
Alas, even though they had YEARS to rewrite their drivers, driver writers coplained about Vista, instead of buckling down and working and getting it right. How do I know it can be gotten right?
My computer runs Vista just fine. If it was Vista with the problem, all us Vista users around here should be crying tears of blood, eh?
Here's the tragedy, a tragedy I've been guilty of as well: People who don't know programming assume that when Windows crashes, it must be Windows fault. Now, the put in crappy hardware with drivers from Taiwan with instructions on a ".ru" website, and downloded free screensavers and animated smiley packs from a Croatian hacker's website, but the crash messages written
for us professional techs to help us fix things say "Windows" not "That stupid spyware filled crappy Screensaver pack you installed..." so
everybody can see that Windows crashed. And because we nerds were following the Betas, and said that the Betas sucked,
everybody knows that Windows sucks!
All betas are buggy. That's why they are called betas! Programmers know this. Beta means that the program is
almost, but not quite done. Programmers use betas because we can diagnose the issues and help the programmers fix them before the plumbers and carpenters of the world find them. Unfortunatly, Vista was so waited on that carpenters and plumbers were hearing bug reports written by nerds for nerds.
Lemmie give a final example: Say you hear about a new car... the Delorean 24. Car and Driver and Motortrend make weekly articles about the new car. You hear through the grapevine that the prototypes tend to break, and they're redesigning the car every time to fix the issues. Does this mean that the Delorean 24 is an inherently bad design?
Some rich guys buy the first Deloreans off the factory, driving them 12-24 months before anyone else. They have troubles with the tires, and some of the pumps, and tell the factory about these. Does this mean that the car that will be released n 2 years will be broken?
The first Deloreans come off the line and it's found out that
for a few people, the linkages in the shifter go bad, trapping the car in 2nd gear. Those are recalled, and new linkages are installed. After the flaw is discovered, all Deloreans that were built wrong are fixed, all Deloreans owned by end users get a free maintenance with new linkages, and all Deloreans coming off the line have the new linkage set. Does this mean that the freshly pressed, new Deloreans are dangerous, because the first runs had issues?
The situation of today is that all the Delorean 24 drivers on the road love their cars, but everybody already knows that the cars are bad because the prototypes had issues, and the first runs have issues! And when the Delorean drivers try to tell people that
their Deloreans are great, people don't believe them because they heard Scott the Mechanic two years ago say that the car was bad... or did he say "I won't drive one until they've had a year to knock the rest of the bugs out?" Same diff, right?
Please, if your only experience with Vista is listening to other people and watching Apple commercials, withhold judgment until you actually use it yourself. If you have used it before Service Pack 1 came out, stop yabbering and run Windows Update and try again. If you have SP1 and still don't like it, well OK. But at least you're making an informed pronouncement.
In other words, all of Vista's problems can be boiled down to (1) Microsoft took a calculated risk to actually try to make everything work right, but this meant that lots of old programs would stop working, (2) end users think all computer errors are Windows errors, even when their shoddy program is in the wrong (and for reference, even Microsoft Word falls into "shoddy"), (3) Microsoft tried to "fix this" by punching holes into Vista, which is about as effective as fixing a cathedral using heavy artillery, and (4) consumers listened to Beta Testers and First Adopters, and refuse to listen to anyone else. All computer nerds know that Betas and First Runs are glitchy, so we take them with a grain of salt...
</rant>
This is why I'm not holding my breath for Win7. (1) It's gonna be late. Way late. It just is. And (2) in order for it to "work better" from the consumer side, they're going to have to make it buggy.
They are going to have to make it buggier than Vista.
This is why I like the Linux model. You get to choose your kernel. If you want the Vista graphics, you have to use the Vista core. With Linux, the graphics and the core are separate. If there was a key change in 2.6 that isn't in 2.4... but then the program would tell you.
The difference is, BECAUSE the Linux programmers know you can run 2.6, OR 2.4, OR 1.2, OR whatever core you want, they don't have to leave "bugs" from 2.4 in 2.6. They get to remove them, and you get to choose to run with bugs and keep your program, or remove the bugs and get a new program.
But Vista is sold to Carpenters and Plumbers. They're not programmers (and I don't say they should be... everyone is an expert in their own field), and they want to buy a shrink wrapped box with batteries included.