Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Jun 2006 23:51:25 +0100, [H]omer wrote:
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>> WinFS is Dead
>> Here's a genuine query for the Winvocates; no troll:
>>
>> Name just one compelling reason to upgrade from XP to Vista.
> Name one compelling reason to upgrade to Fedora Core 6, or SUSE 10
> or OSX 10.4...
I'll resist the urge to list FC6's upcoming features; I get your
point.
> Technologies that will be backported to XP: Avalon, Indigo, Windows
> Workflow.. pretty much the whole WinFX stack.
Avalon (a.k.a. Windows Presentation Foundation) - bit like Flash/SVG
but with .NET hooks.
Indigo (a.k.a. Windows Communication Foundation) - communications
transport .NET foundation for the above (and others) AFAICT.
Windows Workflow Foundation - A new .NET based IDE and classes.
All gross over-simplifications of course, but that's the gist.
>From the POV of a Windows developer, all very interesting I suppose,
but will it actually pan out to be anything more than fancy
terminology for something that can already be done in other ways,
using other more familiar methods and tools. I note that .NET
development does not seem to have become hugely popular.
>From the POV of a Windows user ... yawn ...zzzzzz.
> Technologies unique to Vista (User Account Protection, BitLocker,
> Protected Mode IE,
Yes, all welcome security updates. BitLocker in particular, (although
the "interoperability crowd" will no doubt moan about this), I've
always found it ridiculous for any OS to have such elaborate password
based security mechanisms which becomes worthless in the event of
direct physical access.
Drive encryption is not new, however, and I'd tend to think of any of
the other security enhancements as patches that should have been
pushed to XP users long ago, rather than used as a "selling point" for
a new OS.
> 3D Accelerated UI
Flavour of the month, on at least 2 platforms.
> Desktop Search integration
Ditto.
Bearing in mind that we are talking about XP vs Vista (I'm bitting my
tongue trying to not bring Linux into the equation), as much as I like
the above two features, I really wouldn't *pay* for a new OS just for
them. However, yes they would at least *partly* influence me.
> all the various acceleration technologies like SuperFetch,
> ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive,
I'm keeping Google busy tonight:
SuperFetch - basically a more aggressive cache.
I think Windows needs binaries with more aggressive optimization and a
smaller footprint, in preference to just continually throwing more
hardware at the problem.
ReadyBoost - hotplug memory from USB devices.
Neat idea in principle, however *real* memory is cheaper ... and
*much* faster, and frankly at 2GB, I already have far too much memory.
ReadyDrive - Flash disk hibernation.
Useful, but not ground breaking. I'd rather just Suspend To Ram.
> The Sidebar, the new "instant on" sleep mode that's more like
> hibernate
Linked to the above ReadyDrive, no doubt.
> new applets like a comprehensive backup program
I'd have to see it first hand, to see if it was really worth it (I am
a self-confessed Backup obsessive), but as far as file-level backup is
concerned, MS Backup seems good enough to me in it's current form. If
the new backup can do disk imaging and redeployment, then that would
save me a few quid buying TrueImage, but that's about it.
> Speech Recognition, etc..
No opinion/interest.
> Plus, there are some tchnologies for use with new hardware, like
> SideShow, that allows you to access critical information without
> turning on your PC from laptops that have sideshow hardware.
Ditto.
> Oh, there's also a number of new or improved apps, like Media Player
> 11, Windows Media Center, etc..
I'm really not deliberately trolling on this one, but honestly the
biggest improvement MS could make WRT it's multimedia apps, would be
to shave a few tonne of bloat off them. Give me foobar2000 any day. Or
better, VLC or MPLayer for Windows.
The other improvement they could make would be to either open up
WMV/WMA or switch to an Open Format, but I guess the GPL would forbid
that anyway, unless they made the plugin available as a separate
download. It's not that WMV is crap - I've seen some pretty impressive
HD WMV before, but it is just so damned awkward viewing that stuff
over multiple platforms, and I don't just mean Linux.
> Despite what's been killed, there's still a ton of things in Vista
> that are new.
Yes, I can see that, but I'm not convinced.
As a £30UKP/$50USD upgrade to XP ... maybe, but if it runs into the
hundreds ... forget it. And that's even before I get into issues to do
with Open Standards and Licensing etc.
--
K.
http://slated.org - Slated, Rated & Blogged
Fedora Core release 5 (Bordeaux) on sky, running kernel 2.6.16-1.2133_FC5
05:17:40 up 7 days, 5:34, 3 users, load average: 1.05, 1.07, 0.95
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