Did Microsoft ship another Beta and call it RC1?

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_rc1_worst.asp

I recall reading someone from Microsoft say that Windows XP SP2 RC1 was really a beta release. Judging from the UI inconsistencies, annoying programs and missing functionality, I would call Windows Vista RC1 a beta release too. Especially since the Media Center UI is half-way between where it is now (in Windows Media Center Edition 2005) and where the Media Center team wants to take it.

WinFS was supposed to make the search features more efficient, replace the registry and give developers a unified repository for storing data. Despite it being removed from Windows Vista and all of the Beta 2 news, I was still willing to call Windows Vista a good OS and buy it after SP1, but given all of the things that Paul Thurrott has highlighted, you guys can keep it. Windows Vista is no longer a compelling upgrade from Windows XP, and all of 3D accelerated eye candy will not make me think otherwise. I have all of the features that are missing in Windows Vista in Windows XP (especially Remote Desktop, which is missing in Vista Premium), logical, consistent interfaces and the ability to install backported versions of .NET 3.0, WMP 11, etcetera. What more could I want?

If Microsoft wants my money, Microsoft will have to ignore the RC1 designation, make the UI consistent, kill the annoying stuff and add the functionality that is missing. Microsoft really deserves a pat on the back for all of the good things I have read about Windows Vista RC1, but it still has a miniscule amount of work left to do. While I realize that the finished Media Center UI and WinFS will not be ready until around Windows Vista SP1, after all of the Beta 2 news, I had planned to wait until then anyway, but those plans will change if the things Paul Thurrott highlighted are not fixed, and I am sure that many more people feel the same.

By the way, I realize that people from Microsoft feel upset and underappreciated, as all of the good things they are doing are being ignored, but really, just look at President Bush and Iraq, there are some things that need to be fixed and I will be one of the first people to say "thanks for the greatest OS ever" if you fix them.

I agree, it is pretty good, but when comparing Windows Vista to Windows XP, from a pramatist's standpoint, there is still some work left to do. Not much, but to partially quote Paul Thurrott, what is left to do is what "separates something competent from something wonderful."

Anyway, Paul Thurrott has had quite a few good things to say about Windows Vista. Take a look at them; the quantity is really impressive:

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_rc1.asp
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_rc1_02.asp
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_rc1_best.asp

By the way, I was the one that mentioned WinFS, and it was not WinFS that made me decide to wait until SP1 to buy Vista, but the Beta 2 news. Until Beta 2 debuted and everyone said how horrible it was, I was going to buy Vista in January. Then after the Beta 2 news, I was going to buy Vista after SP1. Now with this news from Paul Thurrott, I am not sure that I am going to buy Vista at all.

jaylittle wrote:

Paul Thurrot is a blundering idiot. 

This says it all. And its sadly the truth.

Charles have been shouting up in here, how good Rc1 is. And judging from what the persons i know that have run Rc1, its to favor over Windows XP sp2 final.

RC1 is a solid release.  Like Chazz says, not RTM but its a leap in the right direction.  On the Hive there are some talks of the x64 build not working all that well especially with networking devices.

Chadk wrote:



jaylittle wrote: Paul Thurrot is a blundering idiot.

This says it all. And its sadly the truth.

I'm surprised after his WGA fiasco he has the audacity to criticize again.  He was shown to be just another sensationalist writer, and that hasn't changed.

julianbenjamin wrote:



Chadk wrote:  jaylittle wrote: Paul Thurrot is a blundering idiot.  This says it all. And its sadly the truth.

I'm surprised after his WGA fiasco he has the audacity to criticize again.  He was shown to be just another sensationalist writer, and that hasn't changed.

Indeed. He's good at making the "truth" like he want it. Yet its not really the truth.

It shows how bad the public medias are getting this days. Its VERY subjective, and they dont think lying is bad. For instance, we had a program on danish national TV, about a danish chat site(Arto, which is a big community for teenagers, 99% of all teenagers have a profile, im a part of the 1% ). They tried to show how easy it was to get contacted by a child abuser.

They said that within 3 minuts, after they logged into the chat, they was contacted by 7 people, wanting to do.. nasty things.

But the truth was, that they contacted people themself, over a week. They took contact, they persons didnt. And it was done over 1 week!!!

So lying in the public media is getting common. So i dont believe in those kind of things anymore.

http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=192501746

Apparently, I am not the only person who thinks that Windows Vista RC1 is not RC quality.

Charles wrote:

RC1 is, well, RC1. So, it's feature complete with beta 2 bug fixes, but not ready for Prime Time. It's no different than any othe RC1 quality software release. It's a release candidate which means we think it's a candidate for RTM, but it's not the RTM build...

Your feedback and bug reports will be most helpful, as always.

C

By saying that it is/was a candidate for RTM does that not mean at some point someone thought it could be the RTM release?  Is that not what RC originally was used for?  Dont get me wrong, i am really looking forward to getting my hands on it as soon as its out on MSDN.  I used Beta2 on my production PC for quite a while and only got rid of it when a new .net 3 ctp came out.  So far i am loving Vista. 

I have no problems at all with my Vista installation. It is fast and reliable. My opinion is that RC1 absolutely RC quality. There are always people wining about Microsoft. It is still freaking beta, they expect the results of a RTM build.

"Pricing looks high to me, especially the Ultimate package for $400. That is the cost of a low-end computer."

Damned they are willing to pay more for Photoshop, AutoCAD, CorelDraw, and other expensive software but paying 400 dollar for a Operating system hell no. I just can’t understand this kind of mentality.

 

 

 

Arran wrote:



Charles wrote:RC1 is, well, RC1. So, it's feature complete with beta 2 bug fixes, but not ready for Prime Time. It's no different than any othe RC1 quality software release. It's a release candidate which means we think it's a candidate for RTM, but it's not the RTM build... Your feedback and bug reports will be most helpful, as always. C

By saying that it is/was a candidate for RTM does that not mean at some point someone thought it could be the RTM release?  Is that not what RC originally was used for?  Dont get me wrong, i am really looking forward to getting my hands on it as soon as its out on MSDN.  I used Beta2 on my production PC for quite a while and only got rid of it when a new .net 3 ctp came out.  So far i am loving Vista.

The general definition of how development is supposed to go that I have learned from everywhere else (e.g. Mozilla Firefox, vBulletin) is that the last beta is supposed to be super stable, pretty much ready for RC status but not given RC status and the RC1 is supposed to be what would have been released to manufacturing, if it were not for the fact that very few people test betas, so the RC1 status opens it up to a wider auidence so that more bugs could be found. Depending on the amount and/or severity of the bugs found, the product then either goes to RC2 or is released to manufacturing.

There are only two variations of this of which I am aware.

The first is the Google definition of development, which seems to state that the first beta that is released to the public must be perfect, that all further releases must extend this perfection and that the product is never to leave beta status.

The second, is the Microsoft definition of development, which seems to state that the first public beta should correspond to an alpha in the general definition, the first RC should correspond to second to last beta release in the general definition and the gold version should correspond to the last beta in the general definition, with SP1 corresponding to the gold release in the general definition.

All three definitions have in common the alpha, beta, release canadiate and gold release progression, with different definitions of what each means in terms of quality and with the exception of the Google definition, which omits the release canadiate and gold stages entirely. They all state that alpha is supposed to be the beginning of development where major features can be removed/added/changed, beta still has features being changed, but is where the product's feature set matures, release canadiate status freezes the feature set and gold status releases the software to manufacturing.

I find that in terms of quality, the Google definition is exceptional, the general definition is pretty good and the Microsoft definiton leaves much to be desired, but thankfully, it gets close to the quality of Google's first public beta around SP2's release to manufacturing historically two years after the product first is released to manufacturing.

By the way, given that no IT manager in their right mind would upgrade a corporation's systems to a new OS from Microsoft before SP1 is released at the earliest (unless they work for Microsoft, in which case they dog food it), and that Microsoft is releasing Vista to home users in January, it could give itself another two months of development time by reshuffling its priorities so that Vista is released first to home users in Janurary and then to corporations in March, thereby achieving the same effect on its revenues that it would achieve if it releases Vista to manufacturing in November.

I know, let's make a thread about Thurott's "Worst things about Vista", and focus on that like that's his whole review!! Lets ignore Thurott's other three articles filled with praise!!

This is so tired.

And why do people keep citing that damn CRN article? It appeared on slashdot and osnews. I guess the haters are holding on to that article for dear life. That aritlce gives NO specifics regarding the problems. That article provides NO substance except that Vista runs well on Macs. At least Thurott provided some details.

As for whether RC1 is RC quality, who cares? I care about RTM's quality. The CRN article that the haters cite, says "Close, but not quite ready". Doesn't sound like it sucks to me. Sounds like it's on track. I use Macs as well as Windows, and I remember that OSX 10.0 was released as beta quality, literally. So I've seen worse than Vista RC1, by far.

BTW, Google's never release anything as substantial as an OS, not even close. Hell, their so-called "office" applets are trivialities. So, they can have a meaningless definition of beta (and please stop pretending that beta = perfect in Google's world; I've seen fanboysim, but sycophancy has to have a limit at some point). Let them release an OS and we'll see if they can meet their current definition of "beta".

Edit:
I've read that RC1 for Microsoft OSes means that this is the first release against which hardware and software devs can begin certifying their warez against.  For example, according to what I've read, this the first release where the .NET 3.0 framework api is frozen, so devs can certify against it.

Shining Arcanine wrote:



The general definition of how development is supposed to go that I have learned from everywhere else (e.g. Mozilla Firefox, vBulletin) is that the last beta is supposed to be super stable, pretty much ready for RC status but not given RC status and the RC1 is supposed to be what would have been released to manufacturing, if it were not for the fact that very few people test betas, so the RC1 status opens it up to a wider auidence so that more bugs could be found. Depending on the amount and/or severity of the bugs found, the product then either goes to RC2 or is released to manufacturing.

I think that this definition really has changed with time.  Back in the days before Windows 98, I would agree with this definition.  Things are not as they once were.  With the advent of the Internet, and the widespread usage of broadband access to the Internet, everything has changed.  Now, software companies (Microsoft included) can send their beta products out to significantly more users than before.  They are expecting 5 Million users to try this RC1 version of Windows Vista.  With so many more testers, they are able to increase the number of bug reports while decreasing the amount of time it takes to receive the bug reports.  This results in a quicker turn-around time.  This is one reason why Microsoft has been able to make such a stable Release Candidate.  No, it's not perfect, but look what they have done since Beta 2!  It's like a night and day difference.  I have every confidence that Microsoft will ship the product on time and I expect this to be the best Windows Launch to date!