Windows Vista

From what you have seen so far, how much of an impact do you think Windows Vista will have on the computer industry?

Will it be just another Windows OS?
Another Windows ME? *shudder*
Will it revolutionize how we do things?

Opinions?

So far I haven't seen any reasons why I should switch my own, my parents', my sisters' Linux desktop machines to Vista.

So far I think it's going to be "just yet another Windows" for me

Erisan wrote:

So far I think it's going to be "just yet another Windows" for me

As an end user, it's just another plain version of windows, but as a developer, it definitely will revolutionize how applications can be built.

Sheva

footballism wrote:

As an end user, it's just another plain version of windows, but as a developer, it definitely will revolutionize how applications can be built.

Yes I'm mainly EJB/J2EE developer and I'm part group which writes Linux drivers and more assembly level stuff for Linux.

I write open source desktop applications just for fun in my free time. But I want write multiplatform applications. I think Vista will be great for Windows application developers, but I'm not sure will Vista give anything to developers who wish to develop multiplatform applications like I do.

Erisan wrote:

    but I'm not sure will Vista give anything to developers who wish to develop multiplatform applications like I do.

Then Windows Communication Foundation can serve you well:p

Sheva

footballism wrote:

Then Windows Communication Foundation can serve you well

I really don't think so ... no thanks

With all Microsoft's new foundations there is little real point buying Vista.

I'm struggling to find reasons for users to upgrade - particularly when many of the technologies that developers are so excited about can be retro-fitted to XP.

"RSS everywhere" might be a win but I don't think most users know about it or even care about it.

The sexy graphics and flipper gimmicks will undoubtedly help sell a few upgrade copies (visit any Apple store and watch the average punter to see what I mean)

But other than that, I have to admit I'm struggling.

I heard last week that so far only 11% of users upgraded from a previous version of Office to Office 2003, so presumably somebody at Microsoft is looking to make sure that figure's much better in future - both for Office 12 and for Windows Vista.

Though, is there ever a big enough reason to upgrade to the next version of OSX or the next version of Linux?  Surely the same sort of enhancements each OS upgrade offers can be ported to a previous version of the OS with 3rd party apps or whatever?

It seems like this argument will always be true for any OS since people want different things.

I, on the other hand, will be upgrading to Vista pretty much for everything as I don't feel like buying or downloading 3rd party applications and playing around with XP to have the Vista experience (not that there is an app for everything Vista offers).


mVPstar

mVPstar wrote:

Though, is there ever a big enough reason to upgrade to the next version of OSX or the next version of Linux?

The difference is Linux upgrades don't cost me a dime.

irascian wrote:

The sexy graphics and flipper gimmicks will undoubtedly help sell a few upgrade copies (visit any Apple store and watch the average punter to see what I mean)

But we will still be locked into the Microsoft-only themes. It's even worse than XP, this time we will only get 1 Windows theme.

irascian wrote:

I heard last week that so far only 11% of users upgraded from a previous version of Office to Office 2003, so presumably somebody at Microsoft is looking to make sure that figure's much better in future - both for Office 12 and for Windows Vista.

I think Microsoft should go on with their original plan and release Office 12 after Vista. Ms is just creating too many versions of Office with too little improvements in a short timespan.

ZippyV wrote:

irascian wrote: The sexy graphics and flipper gimmicks will undoubtedly help sell a few upgrade copies (visit any Apple store and watch the average punter to see what I mean)

But we will still be locked into the Microsoft-only themes. It's even worse than XP, this time we will only get 1 Windows theme.

Ah, but you can easially avoid this limitation without having third party software running constantly (killing resources.)

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=308905

The program in that link will patch the uxtheme.dll file allowing you to load any theme you want using the windows display properties.

Simply run the program.
Then find a theme you like off the net.
Drag it into the C:\Windows\Resources\Theme Folder
Select it in display properties.

YAY!
No paying money for winblinds or any other program to sit in your memory killing resources.

But still it would be nice if this feature is included in Vista.

ZippyV wrote:

irascian wrote: The sexy graphics and flipper gimmicks will undoubtedly help sell a few upgrade copies (visit any Apple store and watch the average punter to see what I mean)

But we will still be locked into the Microsoft-only themes. It's even worse than XP, this time we will only get 1 Windows theme.

Huh? What insider knowledge do you have that indicates there will be no other themes? XP when it was at this phase also included only one theme (the Professional theme) which didn't look anything like the three Luna themes that ended up in the final product. Admittedly I do believe that Aero Glass in 5219 is closer to the final look of Vista than the Professional theme in XP beta 1 was to the final look of XP.

But there might still be additional themes. In fact, I've even seen some MS people hint at that in the beta newsgroups. I was complaining that the non-Glass UI is really ugly and the response from MS was that "there was a lot of work being done on customization and themes".

Sven Groot wrote:

Huh? What insider knowledge do you have that indicates there will be no other themes?

I think I heard about it in one of the Channel9 videos about Aero.

Windows 2000 is to Windows XP as Windows Vista is to Windows Blackcomb

All the amazing kickass will be in the OS after Vista but I'm going to use Vista anyway for the sheer fact that it uses the Windows Server 2003 SP1 core as the starting platform.

If they made Windows 2003 Professional (like win 2k pro) i would be using it now instead of xp sp2

LCARS wrote:

But still it would be nice if this feature is included in Vista.

Exactly, that's why I'm now complaining.

i don't understand you themes people but hey whatever floats your boat.

Microsoft claims that the sexy stuff that makes you want to upgrade isn't in Windows Vista yet.  "Wait for Beta 2" seems to be their mantra.

So I'll wait.