Windows XP vs. Vista

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cloneman
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Post by cloneman » Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:32 pm

Nvidia's drivers for laptops on Vista offer terrible gaming performance compared to XP. I wouldn't be surprised if the drivers are behind for desktop VGA as well.

I have a Go 7900GS. Playing NFS carbon, I went from:

painful @ 800x600 most settings low
to
pleasant @1440x900 most settings high

It was a shocking performance difference. To add insult to injury, no drivers have been released for XP either since last year - so basically the Vista driver is getting mopped up by a 1 year old XP driver.

Here's my 2cents. If your going to sell a mobile GPU that sets people back in excess of 300 dollars - write F'in drivers for it.

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:11 pm

NVIDIA is behind the game with regards to Vista drivers; ATI is not. Although it's not exactly in line with XP, there are enough games that Vista runs better than on XP that it breaks even.

I second the lack of good burning software for Vista. It can burn and make data media out-of-the-box, but it can't manage ISOs.

Plissken
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Post by Plissken » Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:25 pm

Max Slowik wrote:there are enough games that Vista runs better than on XP that it breaks even.
On the same hardware, I'd like to see proof of that.
For the average enthusiast who is comfortable with the XP interface, knows where his files are, knows how to use Google, and knows how to keep his PC safe and stable, why Vista? It doesn't seem to offer any real advantages.

ciz28
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Post by ciz28 » Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:22 pm

Thomas wrote:From what I've heard... Vista = at least 2 gig RAM...
Several of my PCs at work run Vista just fine on 1GB of RAM. I don't notice any difference between those machines and my others that have 2GB.

derekva
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Post by derekva » Fri Jun 29, 2007 11:16 pm

Plissken wrote:
Max Slowik wrote:there are enough games that Vista runs better than on XP that it breaks even.
On the same hardware, I'd like to see proof of that.
For the average enthusiast who is comfortable with the XP interface, knows where his files are, knows how to use Google, and knows how to keep his PC safe and stable, why Vista? It doesn't seem to offer any real advantages.
Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Ep. 1 and Day of Defeat (Source) are noticeably faster on Vista Ultimate x86/32 than on XP-SP2 on my system (see below for hardware specs - 'Desktop' system). The frustrating thing for me has been the crappy driver support (HP, Creative Labs, NVidia, I'm looking at you, bitches) and the annoying (but necessary from a security standpoint) User Access Control - which can be disabled, but I'm trying to resist the temptation.

On the other hand, it had no problem identifying and installing a 5-year old Philips Acoustic Edge soundcard, so not all old hardware is out-of-luck.

With regards to advantages over XP, Vista is inherently more secure out-of-box than XP-SP2, does a much better job of managing hardware and memory resources, and has a greater potential for performance. Do I think it is perfect? No. Am I looking forward to SP1? Of course. Do I think it should be avoided until SP1? Hell no.

For the record, I'm typing this on my Ubuntu system, so I can't be accused of being a Vista apologist/evangelist... :wink:

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Sun Jul 01, 2007 3:26 pm

On the same hardware, I'd like to see proof of that.
http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/41 ... rformance/

I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't personally run those numbers. I know those graphs aren't great, it's a little obscured that those are percentages of XP performance, but those are from the same workstation dual-booting XP and Vista.
For the record, I'm typing this on my Ubuntu system, so I can't be accused of being a Vista apologist/evangelist...
Sing it from the rafters, brothe--I mean, I concur. And NVIDIA, Creative, f*&# you and your drivers. . .Realtek isn't far behind at sucking, either.

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Post by JoeWPgh » Sun Jul 01, 2007 4:16 pm

You probably got enough hardware to run it OK, but I'd seriously recommend 2 gigs of RAM. If 1 gig was the sweet spot in XP, 2 is it for Vista. Also be advised that Vista 32 will max out at 2 gigs, anyway. As for the value of Vista? Even though a series of circumstances has it on 3 of my 4 computers, there's nothing about it that's significantly better than XP. If you need to purchase a Windows operating system, or it comes on a new computer, there's nothing wrong with Vista. If you're looking for an upgrade, it's awfully hard to see it in Vista.

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Sun Jul 01, 2007 6:25 pm

well now.

of all the people here who are running Vista, i'd love to know, what was the impulse? a new OS from the devil? a reason to get another major upgrade?

but really whats so awfully good about Vista? i mean, sure, i emulate one of the Beta versions...but even with that, i see no good in it.

i'm actually installing the real deal [sad my dad bought it though, i have the only computer in the house capable of running it] in a Virtualbox. now, i've got a Pentium D 940 coming soon, if i like it, i might install it on there.

chances are i'll stop while dual booting Mac/Linux.

Its like arguing between who's better, Batman or Superman. Vista is like Superman, all the gadgets built in, one package. Batman is like XP, doesn't look all the great, but with a few things added here and there, its some cool stuff.

so who is better?

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Sun Jul 01, 2007 7:43 pm

The issue at hand is the misconception that Vista is the same OS code as XP with some better looks and a new version of solitaire.

It is fundamentally a newer OS, with virtualized hardware control, SUSE-Linux networking code, metatagging-support for the upcoming WinFS, hardware-level crypto, a completely different driver model, paging, caching, and swapping built in, not to mention incremental shadow-backups. . .it's a completely different beast. Saying they're similar is like putting a saddle on a pickup and calling it a horse.

derekva
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Post by derekva » Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:04 pm

JoeWPgh wrote:You probably got enough hardware to run it OK, but I'd seriously recommend 2 gigs of RAM. If 1 gig was the sweet spot in XP, 2 is it for Vista. Also be advised that Vista 32 will max out at 2 gigs, anyway. As for the value of Vista? Even though a series of circumstances has it on 3 of my 4 computers, there's nothing about it that's significantly better than XP. If you need to purchase a Windows operating system, or it comes on a new computer, there's nothing wrong with Vista. If you're looking for an upgrade, it's awfully hard to see it in Vista.
Ummm...no.

32-bit OSes max out at 4GB native, but you can address more than 4GB using PAE (Physical Address Extension).

Beyonder
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Post by Beyonder » Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:58 am

Max Slowik wrote: It is fundamentally a newer OS, with virtualized hardware control, SUSE-Linux networking code, metatagging-support for the upcoming WinFS, hardware-level crypto, a completely different driver model, paging, caching, and swapping built in, not to mention incremental shadow-backups. . .it's a completely different beast.
I couldn't agree more.

I think people mistake Vista for being porky, but it's really just stuff tacked on to the sides (e.g. Aero, Sidebar, tons of new services, etc.) that make it porky. The underlying OS is a vast improvement over XP, which was a vast improvement over 2000.

falcon26
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Post by falcon26 » Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:32 am

I've found that vista runs hotter than xp. With vista my idle temps on the cpu are about 5 higher and my gpu temps are also about 5 degrees higher as well....

echn111
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Post by echn111 » Sun Jul 08, 2007 12:03 pm

bonestonne wrote:well now.

of all the people here who are running Vista, i'd love to know, what was the impulse? a new OS from the devil? a reason to get another major upgrade?

but really whats so awfully good about Vista? i mean, sure, i emulate one of the Beta versions...but even with that, i see no good in it.
...

so who is better?
No impulse. And having it doesn't mean one thought it was awfully good.

Face it, almost all Window users will eventually move to Vista. It's just a matter of when.

Going by past history, Microsoft keeps the price fairly constant, so there is no price advantage to getting it later or earlier. The only people I'd caution are people with antiquated hardware who'd have trouble running Vista. But if you have a machine that can run it, there is little advantage to waiting or buying now.

Therefore, since I'm going to have to upgrade anyway, and there is no advantage to waiting or getting it now, I chose to get it now.

pputer
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Post by pputer » Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:00 pm

If you don't want to buy the full (retail) version of Vista, would it make sense to keep XP (32 bit) and get Vista 64 bit version and just dual boot them or have them on two machines? That way, you're covered for the developments of Vista and you have a 32 bit OS if you need it?

andaca

Post by andaca » Fri Jul 20, 2007 2:27 pm

mmm i have a dx10 gpu and im not going to touch vista EVARRR...

vista is simply the worst windows vers in the history.

Willy Higinbotham
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Post by Willy Higinbotham » Fri Jul 20, 2007 2:46 pm

OK, since we XP users are ignorant dinosaurs, I'd like to know a couple of things about the new Vista.

1) Does it still have a Registry?

2) Do you still have to deal with dynamic link library files spread over the whole windows directory? Do they get cleaned completely after an uninstall or is it possible that a couple of them might choose to immigrate to my HDD and decide to spend the rest of their lives there?

3) Does it allow drag-and-drop installation a la OSX?

If one of these questions is still no, I see no convincing reason to go Vista way yet. I've sacrificed enough grey cells through my Windows years starting with Win 3.1 up to XP.

The other problem with upgrading to Vista is that some of us have a bunch of expensive software that would cost us a small fortune to purchase their Vista versions again, that's a handicap too (for me at least)

In the light of these points, thank you, I'll stay with my retail XP Pro SP2 until the last day of its support.

jfeldt
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Post by jfeldt » Fri Jul 20, 2007 2:55 pm

Steve_Y wrote: I used Windows 2000 for over 5 years and only switched to XP when I built a new PC earlier this month. I think of XP as little more than an overpriced Windows 2000 service pack. If Microsoft had continued their NT naming conventions and released 2K as NT 5, then XP should have been NT 5.1, rather than a major upgrade.
try opening a DOS prompt in Windows XP and type "ver"

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Fri Jul 20, 2007 3:27 pm

1) Does it still have a Registry?

Yes, and registries are a staggeringly better alternative to dependencies, which even OS X uses.

2) Do you still have to deal with [.dll]s...

.dlls and their alternate OS counter-parts cannot be avoided, no matter which OS you choose, unless*

3) Does it allow drag-and-drop installation a la OSX?

That's all in how the software installs. It can and does run executable programs. I use many**. This is up to the software developer, and not Microsoft.

4) software that would cost us a small fortune to purchase their Vista versions again

What software would that be? I haven't had to buy an Vista-specific software to date.

The fact of the matter is that people will make the change to Vista because it has better security, runs smoother, and has hundreds of new features and improvements. It even runs faster than XP***. On top of that, developers will eventually stop making software for XP, unless it's ported from Vista. Let's not forget that DX 10 looks great. Good luck getting that on XP.

*You're running DOS. Sounds like you shouldn't be happy even with XP. Why don't you give DOS another try? I bet the few programs you can find will run blazing fast on your computer.

**Darkroom, PuTTY, Notepad 2, Orthos...the list goes on. What do you think an installer actually does? Because mostly they just unpack a bunch of files into a directory. They don't touch the registry.

***Yes it does.

Willy Higinbotham
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Post by Willy Higinbotham » Sat Jul 21, 2007 7:17 am

Max,

This is an open discussion that we can continue until we both get blue. It's like the infamous Mac vs PC debates or religious discussions "my religion is better than yours". I neither have the time nor the wish to do that.

As for suggesting me to go back to DOS, thanks for the snide remark, I'll keep it in mind. I'll always think of you, if I find a copy of Photoshop CS2 that runs on DOS. Oh, maybe you were trying to say that dinosaurs should use DOS - Dino Operating System. Anyway, I like your sense of humor.

As for lack of security in XP (especially the Pro version), mind you, I'm not the average Joe, I've successfully implemented XP hardening procedures on my desktop (which is connected to the internet 24/7) and on my laptop as well, none of my computers were infected, nor have I ever been hacked. I don't think that it will happen sooner or later either. If you know how to handle XP, it won't let you down in terms of security.

As for Vista trashing XP speed. I see that you are a staff writer at Techlounge and the article you have linked is by you. I have other test links saying the opposite or the speed gain over XP is so minimum that it can hardly be noticed to a naked eye. But who knows, maybe you know something they don't know? But saying that it blasts XP is a stretch. The speed on Vista is a mixed bag, there are things where Vista faster and things that are slower.

Here's a couple tests for you to start. And it has 'Tech' nomenclature in its domain name too, like your site.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 940,00.asp

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... VzaWFzdA==

http://www.ozhardware.com.au/content/view/18/1/1/4/


Finally, of course I'd expect Vista to be much better than XP, like every new model should be better than the previous one. I am also confident that its performance will improve over the time, when hardware manufacturers improve their drivers, the way that happened with XP.

But it doesn't look like that Vista is the hen that lays golden eggs, at least not at the moment. It will get better though.

I agree with you that one day, we'll all have to switch to Vista due to the fact that the OS will come pre-installed on new computers and as you have stated, developers will stop coding XP software. But we will switch to Vista not because we are dying to do it, but because of the circumstances. This happened when XP was introduced too, but you have to admit that XP was a major improvement over Win98 or WinME - which were really trash.

Happy computing.

pputer
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Post by pputer » Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:52 am

Don't forget this one:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/

What is wrong with Vista is not the design or the problems. It's the fact that Mikey$oft continues the same theme of telling the buying customers what to do and making it hard for them. You have what, six or 7 different versions and it's the same restrictive format XP had. It's for the $$ and that turns off people. I would use it if I could get it free (someone gives it to me) or I can get it discounted. Maybe use the OEM 64 bit version of Home Premium (only for the price). I don't mind installing it on just one system because it would go on the best system I have. But, having to call up MS to tell them I'm upgrading my computer is ridiculous but people have to do it.

zistu
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Post by zistu » Sat Jul 21, 2007 2:59 pm

Willy Higinbotham wrote:Finally, of course I'd expect Vista to be much better than XP, like every new model should be better than the previous one. I am also confident that its performance will improve over the time, when hardware manufacturers improve their drivers, the way that happened with XP.
I think that's the main thing with new versions of Windows in general.

I've been using it since 3.1, moved to 3.11, then to 95 Preview (It came on a pack of floppy disks, the best BIOS update disks I ever had, they still work today!), then to 98. 95/98 gave me loads of trouble, so I moved to NT4, skipping ME and eventually moved on to XP Pro which is where I am at now. Soon I hope to enter the world of Vista on a few new builds.

With every new version of Windows we've been told how much more stable it is, how much more faster, and how much more secure (though noone cared about that much before the Internet came into the picture). The same has happend with Vista, MS did their best to make it seem appealing, though this time with a bit of a marketing twist aimed at gamers, showing off their DirectX 10 as one of its most important features. In all the years I have worked with Windows, the new versions were always trouble. No drivers for old or new hardware, loads of new bugs and oddnesses which mostly always led to instability of the system and the all famous BSOD.

Performance wise it's the same thing. I can remember reading articles in magazines how Windows 98 was much faster than Windows XP, but today I wouldn't want to move back to that for any sum of money.

New versions of Windows need some time to mature. Drivers need to become available, bugs need to be fixed and Vista is in that stage right now I guess. In a year or two from now XP will be a memory for most.

Microsoft has to sell their products, and they do it in a way that sometimes disgusts me, but I guess they have no choice really. A nice example of it is the "Reboot frequency". In 95/98/NT4 you spend a lot of time rebooting when installing new drivers, updates, hotfixes and so on. Microsoft promised that in XP, you'd hardly ever have to reboot when doing all these things. But I've now learnt that this isn't the case. Windows Vista promises the same thing again, but I doubt anything will change there. When I whine about it I get laughed at by Linux users, who seem to be able to do everything besides rebooting without rebooting.

In my experience I have learnt that upgrading a system to a new version of Windows is no good. It'll likely be slower, more unstable, have driver issues and all that, so I never recommend doing that to anyone anymore. But on a new machine or a new build it should be fine.

Microsoft has to come up with new reasons to convince people to upgrade their systems and software each time. And I think this will get harder and harder. Windows Vista offers little in terms of every day functionality that XP does not already offer. Someone using their computer just for e-mail, surfing and the occasional game is not going to even consider upgrading his OS unless there is some good reason to. The same now goes for businesses, I don't see any reason for a business to go out and renew their entire PC force just to be able to run Vista. It has nothing more to offer at this point.
And that's the problem. MS wants to sell, so they come up with all sorts of stuff - true or not - to convince you to buy Vista, even if you don't really need it, and in most cases you don't.

I like my XP, but I also have a machine still running NT4 24/7 without any glitches. I never upgraded the NT box because I really did not see any need to. It does what I want it to do, and runs very stable at that. Most people hated NT4 because it was so damn picky. And it is, I resolved the issues I had by changing hardware, and now it's rock solid and has been for over 10 years. Hmm, there's that pattern again :)

I guess Vista is one of the first versions of Windows where people actually stop and think if they really need it. Windows ME must have woken them up. And that's a good thing, if consumers refuse to buy Vista because it has nothing to offer them, MS will have to do their best to make the new version better.

And the first signs of that have already surfaced.

ame
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Post by ame » Sat Jul 21, 2007 4:11 pm

Anandtech has publised a few artices about vista and DX10

here are a couple

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3029

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... spx?i=3044

Simply put - they say not yet.

My sister recently got a new laptop with vista on it. I must say it looks good, but not as good as OSX, plus its buggy, then again all new OS are (including OSX back in 10.1 10.2 ...)

I use ProTools and it dosen't support vista yet. moving to the vista version of ProTools when it comes out will cost money. Ill also have to upgrade my RAM, reformat/repartition my HD and buy Vista...
why should I spend all this time and money?

anyone?

ronrem
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Post by ronrem » Sat Jul 21, 2007 7:43 pm

With HDD's now ranging from 120 to 500 + GB, a multi-boot setup is no problem-though setting one up0 the first time can be tricky. Having used several boot/partition managers-I'm happy now with Acronis,as it's boot sector tends to stay stable and secure.

Stripped down versions of 2K,XP, Vista can be done with N-Lite and V-Lite.

You can have a full Vista with all the bells,whistles,processes....can have a stipped to the bone XP or 2k too. For Gaming (not online) for heavy Audio or Video work,for Photoshop, you Have the Lite Windows that has no browser,no anti-Virus,no Networking, no misc eye candy and such. You get much faster response,few memory hog issues,interruptions. The partition has no link to the internet so crud from online/e-mail won't be a bog down..

All the power can focus on the primary mission.

To my knowledge,a stripped Vista is still about 1 gb. A stripped W2K can be closer to 150 mb,with a stripped XP a bit larger

fjf
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Post by fjf » Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:31 am

I think that the main point is not whether or not vista is better (after five years of work!) than XP. The point is that we finally had a version of windows working well (2 service packs and coutless updates later), after 5-6 years of work by the crappy company that makes it. And all of a sudden, we have to throw it to the garbage can because they have a 5-years old new piece of work that is going to send us all to heaven. And they add directX10 to force us to do it. And now we have to get a new putter with more RAM and more everything inside. And when an average Joe takes a look at it and plays with it a little, he wonders: Is this the heaven I was promissed?. It looks like the old XP with a nice new theme on top!!. It may be a totally different beast, but we dont have to pay that much to get a new desktop theme and (If the MS god wants to) nicer games in the distant future.

That was it. I moved to Ubuntu. I recommend it to you all. A different way of doing everything, for free, and with the help of a very nice and helping community. No more crap. No more DRM. No more asking permission to some Seattle company to use your own danmed computer. Try it. They will send you as many CDs as you want FOR FREE.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Sun Jul 22, 2007 3:26 pm

Man, this isn't Vista vs. Ubuntu...

Ubuntu, and Linux in general, is at least a year behind when it comes to desktop computing.* Ubuntu is definitely a step up from XP, since XP is six years old, but Vista offers more (which is damn expected, because it ain't free).

It has its pros and cons, but the fact of the matter is that I'm a gamer, and I need to use Microsoft Office/ Photoshop/ Illustrator. I have ridongculous video cards, I want to pwn noobs in DX10 glory, and I like to watch movies with hardware HD acceleration. Linux will never be satisfactory for me.

Vista meets my needs more than XP and Linux. It's probably better for most people, even if they don't realize it.

And everyone who says that it's bullshit, who hasn't tried it (and I'm not talking about the Longhorn beta almost a year ago) is a self-righteous jerk.

*If you think OpenOffice and Office 2007 are even in the same league...OS X's Spotlight doesn't hold a candle to Vista's searching and indexing, and Ubuntu just got Google Desktop...

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Post by Beyonder » Sun Jul 22, 2007 10:49 pm

Max Slowik wrote: *If you think OpenOffice and Office 2007 are even in the same league...OS X's Spotlight doesn't hold a candle to Vista's searching and indexing, and Ubuntu just got Google Desktop...
One other thing people seem to overlook is Open Office (and a whole glut of other free software) runs just fine on Windows. Too often the choice is presented as all or nothing--Windows/IE/Office, verses Linux/Open Office/FireFox--which is sort of ridiculous.

With respect to Office 2007 being so much better: I offer a big, fat "meh." There hasn't been really substantial innovation for spread sheet apps and text editors in years. Quite frankly, I think Open Office has a more intuitive and friendly user interface, and prefer it over Office 200x, but that's just my opinion.

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:44 am

Too often the choice is presented as all or nothing...which is sort of ridiculous.
And totally the opposite of what I was doing. I know OO will run on Windows. Hell, it's even skinned to match Vista.

I was saying it's totally outclassed by MS Office; I'll even go as far as to say that 2003 is a step above it. Which by no means that OO isn't good enough for most people. At home, all people give a shit is that they can print a letter with some (fucktardedly stupid) font, and maybe (MAYBE) balance their checkbooks.

But that's such a small fraction of what the suite is capable of, even OO, that many people never even work the software to the point where the differences become apparent.

You want to check your email? Thunderbird is great. I use it, because I no longer need to:

Manage a massive class schedule
Manage my own, separate, private calendar
Handle public calendars for myself and 50 other administrators
Publish a real-time all-school calendar
Publish a real-time after-school calendar
Make this all available from a website

Thunderbird would shit a fucking brick if I tried the first sign of that. But that, ostensibly, is what Outlook is made for. Email is almost a handy add-on.

But back to OpenOffice. You know how I know, I know that spending a billion dollars to make MS Office has paid off? Because OpenOffice can't spell for shit. I'm not going to get into the fact that the autocomplete thinks that every time I type per I'm gonna say "performance" because that's what I typed the first time, and I'm not going to get into the fact that OO won't save my settings when I exit (or even when I attempt to navigate the options menu, which might have actually made more sense if it was shown in CSS) so all I'm going to is point out that OO knows what a Nintendo is but not an Xbox, PlayStation, or iPod.

OO knows what girls are, but thinks being girly is wrong. I don't really expect it to know what Warcraft is, but I do know that it should be OK with it being played "online". To add insult to injury, the last time I had to switch desktops, I tried backing up and importing my old "dictionary". It was from a different version of OpenOffice, apparently, and it caused a loud, ugly error that would halt and crash OpenOffice every time I tried to run it, until I uninstalled it. (Who the fuck even knows what would have happened if I uninstalled and re-installed it on Ubuntu. It probably would have take Java with it, and a sizeable chunk of GTK+ or something.)

So yeah, I'd rather spend the money on MS Office, because it's worth it for my job. If all I needed it for was for spellchecking letters to Mom, I'd put up with OpenOffice. Or AbiWord. Or Google Documents, which, if I could guarantee a wireless signal everywhere I went, I would totally use instead of OO.

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:47 am

There hasn't been really substantial innovation for spread sheet apps and text editors in years.
To wit: Word is NOT a text editor. Word is a word processor.

VIM and Emacs are text editors, and actually do a much better job of it than Word.

fjf
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Post by fjf » Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:49 am

Max Slowik wrote:And everyone who says that it's bullshit, who hasn't tried it (and I'm not talking about the Longhorn beta almost a year ago) is a self-righteous jerk.
I think that if your passionate defense of Vista needs that kind of argument, then I will no longer post here. I am not paid to be nobody's advocate, and I don't need to insult you to make my point. Seems you cannot stand disagreement. Ballmer and Gates get very passionate too when they see their monopoly threatened.

jaganath
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Location: UK

Post by jaganath » Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:25 am

isn't comparing OpenOffice unfavourably with MSOffice rather disingenuous considering OO is basically free and MSO rather expensive? it's not apples to apples. you pays your money and takes your choice (or not, as the case may be).

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