Agreed that there can be driver and software compatability issues, but the question that arises there becomes is it Microsofts job or the responsibility of the hardware/software maker to update thier products? I beleive that if a company does not wish to update tyhe drivers for their hardware then the blame should rest squarely on them. It's not like microsoft is hiding the info needed to update software and drivers, in fact they have programs in place to encourage driver updating etc.

I think of it this way:
Vista... it's the next Windows ME.

ME came and went... then came XP. I have two XP rigs, but when I replaced my wife's and daughter's rigs they only offered Vista. What a pig it is. M$ is already speeding ahead with some sort of successor- it's about time too!

Were it not for gaming, I think I'd use Ubuntu Linux. I feel your pain.

quote:

Originally posted by Urufu_Shinjiro:
Agreed that there can be driver and software compatability issues, but the question that arises there becomes is it Microsofts job or the responsibility of the hardware/software maker to update thier products? I beleive that if a company does not wish to update tyhe drivers for their hardware then the blame should rest squarely on them. It's not like microsoft is hiding the info needed to update software and drivers, in fact they have programs in place to encourage driver updating etc.

Yeah, that's all true - but the real fallout of these problems lands squarely in the lap of the end users, who frankly don't give a rat's *** about who is to blame, just that there is a problem at all.

If your suit falls apart you're going to blame the tailor, even if it's the stitching-thread that is faulty.

B

I was working for HP when XP was being developed, and later released. It was just as big a nightmare as Vista is/was, except 98 was really dated and ME really was crap, so I think people were more willing to switch. That and internet piracy was still very, very easy, so people switched. Vista is coming into its own now. If you buy one of the OEM 3 System Builder editions you'll save 200 to 300 dollars on it. Pretty much what XP used to cost.

My vista laptop often has a "black screen of death". Whatever program I have open continues to work fine, but everything on the desktop, including the toolbar, vanishes, never to be seen again.

quote:

Originally posted by Urufu_Shinjiro:
Agreed that there can be driver and software compatability issues, but the question that arises there becomes is it Microsofts job or the responsibility of the hardware/software maker to update thier products? I beleive that if a company does not wish to update tyhe drivers for their hardware then the blame should rest squarely on them. It's not like microsoft is hiding the info needed to update software and drivers, in fact they have programs in place to encourage driver updating etc.

All true, but when MS purposely makes it very difficult for vendors to sell new hardware with XP, they are in effect, FORCING vendors to abandon developing/supporting XP drivers for the new hardware b/c they know there will be practically no XP installs on that hardware.

Also, BACKWARDS compatibility is clearly the responsibility of the OS vendor. Of course they are under no obligation to provide it but the above has effects here also b/c I can't upgrade to new hardware if I want to run old software (note that by "old" here I mean two years).

--Outlaw.

quote:

Originally posted by Outlaw---:

quote:

Originally posted by Urufu_Shinjiro:
Agreed that there can be driver and software compatability issues, but the question that arises there becomes is it Microsofts job or the responsibility of the hardware/software maker to update thier products? I beleive that if a company does not wish to update tyhe drivers for their hardware then the blame should rest squarely on them. It's not like microsoft is hiding the info needed to update software and drivers, in fact they have programs in place to encourage driver updating etc.

All true, but when MS purposely makes it very difficult for vendors to sell new hardware with XP, they are in effect, FORCING vendors to abandon developing/supporting XP drivers for the new hardware b/c they know there will be practically no XP installs on that hardware.

Also, BACKWARDS compatibility is clearly the responsibility of the OS vendor. Of course they are under no obligation to provide it but the above has effects here also b/c I can't upgrade to new hardware if I want to run old software (note that by "old" here I mean two years).

--Outlaw.

Backwards compatibility is a tricky tightrope, I agree that the OS should have as much backwards compatibility as possible, but at the same time you cannot remain backwards compatible forever or you'll have no progress. In fact, it's rumored that MS is considering breaking backwards compatibility entirely with the next windows in order to facilitate much needed change in the OS. I'm with BoCfus on this one, everyone was complaining about drivers and backwards compatibility when xp came out. Win98 drivers didn't work at all in xp and many companies took forever to make xp drivers, some never did, and a lot of people had to wait till the next version of their favorite software came out to run it on XP. Oh, and XP was shouted down as a resource hog and was too slow in games, "98 for gaming" was shouted many a time. Looking back now we all know that XP was superior and that 98 was antiquated and needed to be replaced in order to make progress. It's the same with vista except vista got even worse press that XP, it's no worse than xp was when it came out, heck, it's improved at a much faster rate than xp ever did, but people just love to hop on that anti-vista bandwagon. So much so that vista gets blamed instantly for any problems. Take huggys "black screen of death" on his laptop, maybe there is something actually wrong with the laptop, have you had it looked at, has it been determined to be an OS bug or has it been assumed to be the dreaded Vista? People compare Vista to ME and I think that is an incorrect comparison, ME really was $#%@, it was $#%@ for everyone though, there was almost no one unaffected by it's many issues, but there are many many many people running vista that like it better than xp and it runs better than xp for them, so it's far less likely to be a problem with the OS itself.

quote:

Originally posted by Alloy007P:


Now everytime I go to use my computer(which I use everyday)I say to my self I wonder what BS Vista is going to give to me today. I guess its like a teacher who has been teaching in Junior/High school for a really long time and dosen't care about there job anymore, and in a monotone/depressed/not careing voice say I wonder what BS excuse the student will give me today for not doing there homework. It goes like this excuse: My dog ate my homework=Vista

Reminds me of my daughter at the moment. She has an excuse for everything until it appears that the world makes all the mistakes and not her. I end up wondering what bs excuse she`ll have next time. Teenagers.

Anyway, I stay away from Vista, even though I recently saw it selling for £69 now! £10 less than before.

Maybe that`s why bill gates is stepping down.

I wonder though,what if SoW/BoB is optimized to run on vista with 4+ Gigs of ram? Probably never happen but who knows!