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ABM (Anything But Microsoft)
Posts
I don't think there's a reason to, honestly.
Reasons to use XP are old hardware support (a gig or less of RAM, single-cores, etc...), application compatibility, hardware compatibility, familiarity, the fact that DX10 doesn't offer anything now, and XP GPU drivers are mature.
If you have old hardware, specialized app/hardware needs, or use your machine only for gaming, Vista doesn't offer much. If you use the OS for work (ie: multitasking with business apps, spreadsheets, PDFs, email, browsing) it may be useful in ways XP can't be.
I wouldn't say stability is an issue either. Compatibility and useless "features" maybe. But not stability.
Having done it, I ask this same question. It wasn't worth the trouble of getting it to work, and Vista was just plain disappointing. Can't see any reason to use it, now or in the future.
But no, they had to remove the only legitimate feature upgrade that made any sense.
There are a great many important updates under the hood with Vista that we aren't seeing the benefit of... yet. Once they start doing flash cacheing on the motherboard, sideshow screens on portable devices, and hypervisor shit, alongside the obvious DX10 and othersuch stuff, folks will adapt to it.
I primarially use Mac at home, so that isn't the reason I am supporting Vista here; I am just saying that there is a great deal more to it than people are giving it credit.
Trillian, perhaps. I don't use the fancy-shmancy kid stuff, but it's pretty awesome and reliable.
Syndalis, I agree. The OS wasn't up to expectations, but that's its major failing, not being "unstable, buggy, and bloated" like you hear on Mac ads and the dregs of tech forums.
Isn't Trillian for Windows? aMSN is pretty good and should already be in Synaptic.
Unless you actually, you know, work with repairing problems on Vista every day. Then you start to see a lot more of the issues that it causes. I wouldn't call it unstable or bloated, but it's got a lot of bugs to work out. Some applications still don't play nice with UAC, SuperFetch has some issues with running useful programs at bad times and actually slowing performance, and the .MSU/wsua.exe standalone update system is a clusterfuck.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good improvements. Instant Search and Fast Sleep/Resume are awesome and needed features, ReadyBoost is kind of neat in theory, and the new diagnostic tools are a step in the right direction. It just needs some work.
And Microsoft really needs to stop changing it's tools around for end users while making them more difficult for power users and technicians. This shit with MSU's not running in safe mode is incredibly annoying when trying to repair a system, and the tools they've updated (like Disk Defragmenter, which still sucks compared to the Microsoft-owned SysInternals version) actually removed some functionality.
These are my two biggest gripes with Vista. The first being that while the names and locations of commons stuff (like say, how to change your display settings is now under Personalize), it's not any better. It's just different. It's like they changed it for the sake of changing it.
The second is that Vista is completely useless to Administrators because Microsoft doesn't have an adminpak or Exchange tools available for it, and the old versions aren't supported in Vista. Sure, you can install adminpak in Vista, but it's really buggy and the Exchange tools won't install at all.
I have my work laptop dual booted because I wanted to give Vista a fair shot, and admittedly, it's ok for every day use. Not fantastic, but in truth I could upgrade my entire company and nobody would notice the difference (aside from the new log on screen, probably). However, all those AD and Exchange scripts I wrote to streamline the repetitive tasks that I do hundreds of times a week? They don't even run in Vista because I can't install the administrative packages. In Vista I'm back to RDCing into the server every time I want to do something, and then I have to do it by hand.
Come on Microsoft. If you want to convince IT people that they should make a case to their company to upgrade, maybe you shouldn't gimp the way they're used to working. We have no plans to upgrade in 2008... we'll see what 2009 brings. Personally, (not that I have any Windows machines at home, but) I'm waiting for Windows 7.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
Kopete.
Ill give that a go thanks
Trillian apparently doesn't have all the crazy stuff (according to my sis) but I believe it is Linux (deffo windows and mac).
Amsn I use on my Mac ... I have always used it since 1st getting a mac and hating the official msn client, it's kinda stuck with me, but she doesn't like it.
You're best just using Kopete, or Pidgin if she wants to use multiple protocols.
Really? I must have been thinking of another client... I will have to give Trillian a run on my Mac then.
She has Pidgin at the 'mo, so I will give Kopete a go tomorrow and see what the verdict is, damn kids and there pictures and screen names longer than most peoples blogs.
Everything else in aMSN seems to work though, mostly. Although it has a slightly clunky interface because of the way the menus work. Whoever programmed those up should be shot.
I will be installing kopete for her to try later, I'll let you know what she thinks.
I've heard there is a new aMSN on route, and you can try it now if you are willing to compile it and all that stuff... I'll wait, I quite like aMSN, but yeah, it could definatly do with being a bit smoother
Why is this even being debated?
Vista is going to work for a group of people and hardware combinations, and it's not for another group.
Vista has run flawlessly on my machines, and I'm happy with it. It's not OSX in features, but that's always been the case with Windows. (Not saying you implied that, it's just that a lot of the arguments out there against Vista are comparisons to OSX and to a lesser degree, Linux Distros). If it didn't work great for you, that's a perfectly legitimate reason to not use Vista, at least right now.
Use what works for you, hasn't that always been the rule of thumb?
MK: DS Code: 528.341.706.032 - Import from Play-Asia PSN: VictorX10
I just really wish Pidgin would buckle down and support these things. I really hate having more than one chat program open at a time (and don't usually). And I like to stick to pidgin because then I have all of the proper chat logs.
I just go with Pidgin since I barely use any of the other functions in MSN as it is.
Pidgin definitely has its place if u don't need all the BS that MSN can do these days.