Windows Vista Voer Already...?

thegamefreak0134 · Post by **thegamefreak0134** » Wed 31 Jan, 2007 8:28 pm

I wanted to try out Windows Vista before I have to go off and start using it fully for pay, so I was going to download and install the beta version. Problem? The preview program is already closed. Darn them.

Is there anywhere I can still download the beta, or is there someone who can e-mail or otherwise send it to me? I'm not particularly keen on switching to an operating system that I haven't tried, and our school isn't planning to install it until after I graduate.

Thanks!

-thegamefreak

the_unknown_one · Post by **the_unknown_one** » Wed 31 Jan, 2007 8:34 pm

I can get Vista (Business edition) through my school for free, hehe. But I'm not allowed to share it

And I don't have an extra serial key anyway.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Wed 31 Jan, 2007 8:38 pm

Well, you can get it just about anywhere, and I have a key I can share with 1 other person (strange rule isn't it?) but I have no idea where I left the paper with the key on it.. sorry..

anyway, it looks nice but it really isn't good (i've seen happy ppl who just bought vista - i'd love to see their disappointed faces when they installed it

)

vista = evil

hop · Post by **hop** » Wed 31 Jan, 2007 8:45 pm

http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/hashto ... PB.torrent

DigiTan · Post by **DigiTan** » Wed 31 Jan, 2007 8:47 pm

So hop, any Vista recommendations for us. I was figuring on at least waiting for the first SP.

thegamefreak0134 · Post by **thegamefreak0134** » Wed 31 Jan, 2007 8:56 pm

Thanks hop. This was what I needed to know. I can't bit torrent on a school connection (stupid stupid filter) so I'll have to commit it to dial-up at home. Or just get Natso to get it for me.

threefingeredguy · Post by **threefingeredguy** » Wed 31 Jan, 2007 9:28 pm

DigiTan, did you know all of the CS majors (including me) got a free copy of Windows Vista but all the EE majors didn't? Crazy, huh?

DigiTan · Post by **DigiTan** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 1:05 am

Well, I guess it's related to CSs needing the most up-to-date platform to do assignments/projects on. EEs get a lot of free PSpice and National Instruments progs for labs, plus I think they finance your senior design project to some limit. I wonder when/if they'll have Vista in the bookstore.

threefingeredguy · Post by **threefingeredguy** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 4:32 am

I heard it was April.

the_unknown_one · Post by **the_unknown_one** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 6:17 am

The first SP has already been released!

hop · Post by **hop** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 8:58 am

DigiTan wrote:So hop, any Vista recommendations for us. I was figuring on at least waiting for the first SP.

Get it for free and try it out if you can.

Otherwise I see no benefit from it (yet):
- driver support needs some testing time, untill then it's a bit edgy. Also see lessons learnt from previous new Windows versions.
- no performance gains whatsoever (google benchmarks) losses even but I guess they'll be corrected in the future
- no d3d 10 games
- probably no d3d 10 videocard unless you felt like spending 500-1200 dollars on a brand new video card with brand new support for a d3d version only used in a brand new os
- learning the new environment costs time, which you simply will not gain back with practical performance gains in your working with Vista because there are none

Maybe play around with it some time like it's a dual boot linux installation you reboot into every now and then for a chuckle. Maybe try the media features if you have sound&video hardware that could use them. See if all the copyright theft measures hype was true. See what good Vista is to you.

Do not deploy in a work environment yet unless you've experienced a benefit from it yourself.

For now anyway.

They started working on the SP1 but I'm pretty sure it hasn't been released yet.

Post by **benryves** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 10:41 am

Most of Vista's changes impact on developers more than end-users. There are some obvious places where this is true, D3D10 and UAC for example.

I'd really like to use some of the new features (breadcrumbs in Explorer, improved search system) for myself as I'm sure those would give me a practical performance boost.

I'm a bit disappointed that some of the most exciting new features were dropped (WinFS and Monad). Monad is freely downloadable and is every bit as awesome as expected, though.

hop · Post by **hop** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 2:04 pm

Yeah things like WinFS (and d3d 10 when it's actually used) would make all the difference, but 99.9999% of the new features, like breadcrumbs, are either available from third parties in XP or have been around in other OSes you can dual boot or remote desktop into for ages and that don't eat your resources for breakfast.

What Microsoft does with it's OS is basically gather the somewhat usefull things from other OSes or third party apps of it's currently promoted OS, and make just sub-optimal, but broadly marketable, Microsoft(tm) versions of them which are then packaged into a so-called new OS.

For most of us here this means there's no reason whatsoever to upgrade to Vista or any other new OS Windows releases unless the latest version of the third party software we use (firefox or adobe acrobat for example) requires it. At least, untill the first service pack or two corrects the usability of things so the transition is actually comfertable. So what we get is a new security feature or two that should've been included in a Microsoft OS many years ago and having to (re)install a third party app or two less every time we (re)install the OS.

For those people who need Windows apps to guide them through doing anything with a PC this means they get a huge package of donkey-proof Microsoft(tm) stuff that's more or less up-to-date with the rest of the computing world.

thegamefreak0134 · Post by **thegamefreak0134** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 4:37 pm

This is all fine and good for those of us who know what we're doing. If you like linux, then yes, a lot of the new features of windows are going to look like linux ports. But what if you don't?

I still prefer a windows environment to work in. It lacks low-level support where it's needed (as there are a lot of times I wish it would just let me use a real command line for a minute) but overall microsoft excels at making things easy to use. What I really wish they would do (and hope they will allow to be done in vista) is give both ends of the specrtum. Make it easy for normal users to do normal things, and make it easy for the system administrator or similar to get low-level access stuff to fix things when the windows automatic thingy doesn't quite work right.

Regardless, to new computer users and to your average joe, Vista will offer a lot of improvements, I'm sure. And since this means developers will need to be targeting Vista for their applications, people like me (a developer o.O) need to have the latest version. A program that runs on windows will still, for the most part, have the biggest audience.

So now that's cleared up. True it may suck in some aspects, all operating systems do. However, I still need to see what the hype is all about. (And remember that the copyright theft protection thing was rumored about XP as well. I doubt seriously if it's as bad as everyone said it would be, those are just anti-microsoft people talking.)

-thegamefreak0134

PS: I'm just going to break down and buy it, it's too much hassle to try to download 640 MB over dial-up.

Post by **benryves** » Thu 01 Feb, 2007 4:49 pm

thegamefreak0134 wrote:(as there are a lot of times I wish it would just let me use a real command line for a minute)

I already mentioned it, Monad was dropped from Vista but is a free download from Microsoft. I use it on XP.

What makes PowerShell so cool is that it has access to .NET types/classes. This might not sound that cool, but how's this for an example?

Code: Select all

PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs> [system.reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname('system.windows.forms')

GAC    Version        Location
---    -------        --------
True   v2.0.50727     C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Windows.Forms\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\System.Windows.Forms.dll


PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs> $form = new-object system.windows.forms.form
PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs> $form.text = 'PowerShell'
PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs> $textbox = new-object system.windows.forms.textbox
PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs> $textbox.text = 'This was created on the command-line.'
PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs> $form.controls.add($textbox)
PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs> [system.windows.forms.application]::run($form)
PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs>

That loads System.Windows.Forms, creates a new Form, adds a TextBox to it and displays it. Silly example, but when you think of how many .NET classes there are, and combine that with a scriptable shell, you should realise that PowerShell is incredibly powerful.

Edit: The reason I was in htdocs was looking for PHP files pointing at the old 403.htm and 404.htm files, using this:

Code: Select all

PS C:\Web\Apache2\htdocs> Get-ChildItem -Filter '*.php' -Recurse | Select-String '40(3|4).htm'

- a good replacement for the broken "find in files" feature of Explorer!