How many different versions of Vista are there? There is a lot of confusion about this among users. How do you upgrade. Which version is the “good one”? Which one is the best for me?
Fortunately, I could not care less about the damn thing so I’m not really keeping track of this. But thank you for making people’s lives more confusing. I think this is what I’m trying to say here:
chart © machouse
Most modern operating systems have a very simple upgrade path. You go from version A to version B. This is true for OSX, most linux distros, most unixes and etc. I thought that the Hove vs Pro thing with XP was pointless and stupid, but Microsoft outdid themselves this time. Penny Arcade says it best:
comic © penny arcade
User total user confusion, here we come.
[tags]vista, microsoft, windows, osx, mac, upgrade, upgrade path[/tags]
And yet, the users will choose confusion because “it is better”.
*looks at one year uptime on Solaris system”
Yeah, I can see why it is better . . . it must be solitaire . . .
Windows will never be able to compete with Unix uptimes unless Microsoft figures out how to patch the OS without rebooting the system. They got better at it with XP, and perhaps it will be even better in Vista but still…
The only time I had to reboot my Ubuntu box was when I upgraded it from Hoary to Dapper – and I keep it relatively up-to date installing all the patches as they come out.
I usually wait till lunch time to install the queued up Patch Tuesday updates on windows servers – just in case I need to reboot.
I think the main reason why people choose windows is that they don’t know any better. Most people don’t have the frame of reference to choose an alternate system. Most schools and work places are windows shops – very few people get similar exposure to unix, linux or OSX…
Yet, every time I see a computer on TV it is a Mac. How does that work?
Apple doesn’t charge to use their stuff in movies and TV. They look at is as free advertising.
Ah! That explains a lot. :)
But I guess even a long term perpetual endorsement from holywood is not enough to affect the status quo of the OS market.
Or maybe it’s just that most people can’t tell windows from osx on the screen so it doesn’t really do anything for them. :P
I’m going to nit-pick here – shouldn’t the “Vista to a higher vista upgrade” ones have lines going between the 2 versions of Vista you would start/finish with instead of going from WinXP?
Yeah, probably… It’s still funny though. (note: I didn’t make that chart).
I did :)
(well, my own version thereof)
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/6619/vistaupgradepathlm6.jpg
Nice! Still equally confusing for the average user though. :mrgreen:
well yeah, isnt that the point of all these multifarious upgrades – confuse people until they say “look, fuck the cost, just give me the one that does everything”
Well… They could just offer a single version costing same as the super duper ultimate silver extra edition. People would still buy it cause Microsoft has the market cornered with the captive OEM distributors and all.
I think the real reason is to fool people into spending more money than they need. MS hopes that people will buy the cheep upgrade from XP, and then find out that it does not have all the features they want. So they will need to buy another upgrade.
Then when they buy a new computer it will come with another cheap OEM version, that is not going to be compatible with their old upgrade.
Oh, and the upgrade versions will probably be buggy and not work correctly, so you will most likely need to buy a full version anyway. :P
I have had to work with this stuff a few times already in consulting. It is just a stupid marketing scheme, obviously. The only upgrade that is “kinda cool” is aero, but even that fails due to directx being garbage.
I think I read somewhere that gaming on Vista sucks ass. Apparently given the same game, and same hardware you will get much better performance on an XP machine than on Vista. I mean, that would be expected from an OS that requires minimum 2Gigs or RAM to run smoothly.
I don’t think anyone writes stuff for the new DirectX and they probably won’t start doing major things with it for the next year or so. And even if they do, no one in their right mind would break compatibility with XP in the next 3-4 years because at the current upgrade rates it will still be the dominant OS out there.
Btw, how come OSX can have pretty graphics that run on modest software, but when MS tries to copy them, they create a memory eating, GPU hugging behemoth?
I believe the GUI is the reason. AFAIK aqua uses OpenGL, a far superior graphics API. There is also the fact that Apple makes hardware with software in mind and software with hardware in mind whereas windoze is one big cludge that attempts to run on any old POS ix86 PC.
Vista is the worst failure I have seen from MS in years, it reminds me of when ME came out.
LOL! It’s settled them – Vista is the new ME!
You know, Areo doesn’t really do anything for me. I really don’t care that much how my desktop environment looks. My XP box at home is running with the classic theme, and all the graphical effects turned down to the minimum.
But I guess shiny stuff is their main selling point – and dumb people out there will definitely fall for it.
Shiny stuff makes screenshots look better, thusly attracting the people who don’t understand the computer stuff enough
as demonstrated:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20061213
(I had to spend a long time looking for that, appreciate it or else! :P
LOL!
Btw, I subscribe the the UF RSS feed so I already saw that a while ago. I think they had a whole batch of Vista upgrade jokes in there.
I think there is a gene in geek DNA that causes a natural attraction to User Friendly, Tom’s Hardware and Slashdot . . .
Yep. And you know what? I think that this gene is actually located on the Y chromosome, seeing how there are relatively few females frequenting these sites. :P