Poll
Question:
Would You downgrade from Vista to XP?
Option 1: Yes, I hate it.
votes: 11
Option 2: Yes, but not possible
votes: 2
Option 3: No, I love it.
votes: 3
Option 4: Don't use it.
votes: 0
I guess that I'm not the only one that runs several OS both at work and home and yes, this is an OS2 based site... but I'm kind of curious regarding this topic.
When buying new systems today for Lenovo one is forced to accept an installation of Vista - at least one could earlier order ThinkPads with XP instead of Vista - even if the price was around 165 USD higher (at least here in Sweden).
And I guess that I'm not the only one that really dislikes Vista; since I've helped couple of family members to downgrade their Vista systems to XP. And it seems that Lenovo now also have had way too many complaints about Vista since the now include XP as a downgrade option on ThinkPads in some countries. What also crosses my mind if Microsoft actually have listen and talked to their customers, both consumers and corporate customers - since I doubt that actually everybody would give two thumps up for Vista.
Hello OS/2's W F Ambassador Plenipotentiary ("kimhav"); While we are on the topic of Microsoft's "Vista" re: "When buying new systems today for Lenovo one is forced to accept an installation of Vista - at least one could earlier order ThinkPads with XP instead of Vista - even if the price was around 165 USD higher (at least here in Sweden)..." what immediately comes to mind is that previous to the acquisition of IBM's PC Company by Lenovo one could have easily (somewhat) obtained an IBM PC System that runs the OS/2 Warp Operating System. The questions are: how easy is it today for someone to obtain an Lenovo PC System that would run the OS/2 Operating System; and, if Lenovo continues to support the OS/2 Operating System in the way that it in the case of IBM. Also, will representation be made on behalf of the OS/2 World Foundation for companies such as Lenovo, HP, Intel et cetera et cetera.... for the addition of OEM support for the OS/2 Operating System.
Thank you.
I had sent an e-mail to Lenovo about getting a Thinkpad pre-installed with eComStation. The reply was to contact them by phone. I have not done that. They did not indicate - in the e-mail - about whether or not they would pre-install eComStation on their computers.
I am frustrating with Vista. There is so much I can do with WinXP that I am unable to do with Vista. It was easy to add programs and change themes but not so with Vista.
Setting aside any "XP/Vista versus OS/2" discussion, and just looking at XP and Vista, I too find myself prefering XP to Vista. While I do understand some of the reasons for some of the changes to Vista (specifically the security stuff), I find that a lot of the stuff in Vista just seems to more time consuming to accomplish, when compared with XP.
From a support perspective, Vista can be a pain. I've run into quite a few Vista users who have XP drivers for particular hardware, and while XP and Vista are similar enough that a lot of the drivers from XP will still work okay in Vista, there are drivers that just bring Vista to a crash... Not fun.
The driver fall-back is something intended by Microsoft, this has been the case even from NT to 2k, 2k to XP, and now carried on with XP to Vista. This allows hardware manufactures to get off their asses and produce drivers. Granted, the drivers may still suck (cough, cough Nvidia, damn them), but atleast you will still most likely be able to use the hardware at all. I suggest you have those users look hard for Vista WHQL certified drivers, using the driver fall-back is most certainly not wise for extended periods of time.
BigWarp, changing themes is just as easy with Vista, especially if you get a UXtheme Hack for it so that the Visual Style Engine does not check for Microsoft Certificates. I have done this myself on XP so that I may develop my own skin, and my roomate has done the same on Vista so he can have other skins. Be warned, some skins are poorly designed/tested and may lead to instability.
All Thinkpads a buyed for my family (R50e, R52, R60e) are came with a license which allowed me to install up to two generations older Win versions. In my case there where preinstalled XP and the license allowed me to install W2k or W98 on this machines. Of course you have to have approbiate CDs to do this, but I think I've read, you can even order XP CDs from Lenovo if you dislike Vista. But maybe this is different in other countries.
Best buy was 2 R52 last christmas for about 700€ (new machines). Okay, not the latest generation. But 1450x1200 display and working APM in eCS1.2, audio (rarely used), lan and wlan and DVD-RAM burner, there's nothing I miss. And XP Professional was preinstalled. So maybe you look for a little bit outdated (but good supported) model.
With my Vista notebook computer, the themes did not always install. When changing a screen saver, I had to do a search to find out which directory they were installed and copy the screen saver file to it. With the themes, one could use a 'browse' to locate the installed theme. With the screen savers, it did not have a 'browse' to locate newly installed screen saver.
I had programs that worked in WinXP that won't install on the Vista. :-[
They might need to be run with elevated priviledges, Vista's sandbox approach does not play nice with many installers that make system-level changes.
This past year, using Vista Home Premium on the Compaq Presario has been interesting. One portion of my occupation is 'cash flow planning' with the need (mandated requirement) to use financial services software.
* Once, virtually all installed shortcut links at registry level, screen-flashed and were rendered useless.
* UAC - User Access Control must be turned off to properly install & run most software, if it installs.
* Not counting productivity software, 25% of my financial vendor software still does not work under Vista.
* 'IrfanView,' my preferred windows graphics viewer, has its global graphics preferences, Vista-overridden.
* A similar Vista extension global-override has held true with attempted media format global-changes.
* Vista did install a media format that was needed for a theology software program (fixed by the vendor).
* Auslogics Disk Defrag (freeware) solved the 'eternal day-long defragging' Vista defrag problem.
* 'Virtual PC' was just installed, a message said 'Virtual PC' wasn't recommended for Home Premium.
* Vista did not detect my Vista-ready anti-virus last week, but did let me enter, 'self-monitor anti-virus.'
* There's more, and 'the best one' is one from last week...
After a lengthy Vista Update, reboot gave the message, 'not genuine Windows' and took me through a series of UAC-style 'do you really know what you are doing' type of message(s), before the completely legal Product ID# on the back of the laptop would be accepted, and it took another reboot to get rid of the inference that 'you're no good' message.
What if this would have occurred up during a cash flow planning/financial services seminar? ...embarrassing!
I just got 2 gigs of ram (newegg.com) to replace the 1 gig of factory ram, and will soon be doing a factory-fresh recovery disk reinstall, now that I know the potential Vista Traps & Tricks. Hopefully, WinXP will can installed as a virtual guest, to finally run all of my financial services software. An attempt will also be made to install Linux & eComStation, as virtual guests.
Vista's (2) A.S.A.P. Caveats: Do turn off User Access Control, and create VISTA DVD Recovery Disks.
Vista's (2) Advantages: It is pretty, and; you do get most-needed media codecs.
Otherwise, Vista on the laptop has been a sheer joy.
First of all, OEMs place so much garbage on their install CDs, laptops are never right IMO if you use the OEM install CD. I prefer real copies of the OS, and getting my drivers/programs set up myself. I would strongly advise against turning UAC off, it may be annoying, but if everyone sings its praises on linux (and its much more obtrusive there), why berate it on Windows? A final point, just because the company claims something is vista ready does not mean it is. My nvidia drivers aren't even XP ready and they have had 8 years to work on XP :\
That "kimhav" started out with the following; "I guess that I'm not the only one that runs several OS both at work and home and yes, this is an OS2 based site... but I'm kind of curious regarding this topic..."; but, Gee Whiz... and, not being in any way jealous... the feeling is that this discussion has escalated into a Windows-only forum and I am curious to know if more things OS/2 should not be discussed rather than so much focus on "VISTA"! ::) ::) ::)
"kimhav", Thanks for the info on which this site runs. Is it possible to obtain some specifics to enable us to do the same (have our sites "developed" and "run" under the OS/2 Platform).
Here are the the parked URLs:
http://www.OrionEnterprises.com
and
http://www.OrionResourcesIntl.com
Thank you in advance.
Sab, please, remain calm. It may be an OS/2 forum, but really, relax? I already had to remove some art I was doing and was excited to show other computer people because "this is an OS/2 forum, and its not appropriate". I was hoping that someone could get use out of it, but whatever.
Terry, what Compaq have you purchased? They mostly sound eCS ready, but you more likely than not are going to need to do some DFSEE magic and have a version of eCS ready with ACPI support. Chipset should be handed by Panorama, assuming Compaq doesnt write garbage VESA tables into the VESA bios. But these are things which (unfortunately) you can only find out by trying :C
Please post the model and I will look to see if any of the hardware is confirmed working or not, or better yet, you can check here and post a report in the event you get it installed!
http://en.ecomstation.ru/hardware.php?action=category§ion=brand
You know "Saijin_Naib"; sometimes one ought to wonder why was it that IBM fell in love with "Linux" but then again one has to remember that "Chicago" (like Vista appears to be like) did not arrive; and, as I go into retirement in the next few years after waiting (like many others including IBM) for the last thirty or there about on Windows I would like to look back and be happy that a page could have been taken from Lou Gerstner's book. So, if that is the "vulnerability" that you are talking about "Saijin_Naib"; thankfully, there are eComStation, VOYAGER (and possibly CASSINI) on the horizon. ;D ;D ;D
I'm guessing that IBM fell in love with Linux because it cost them nothing to acquire an OS that was largely functional, arguably "superior" to anything else available, and constantly worked on, for free, by thousands of other programmers that IBM is under no obligation to compensate in any way, other than to make a mention of them in some GPL text somewhere. Its a business, and any way to cut corners and save money is the way to go. I truly hope eCS can get some love from IBM (releasing source or even having IBM release some API docs or drivers), but I sincerely doubt it. The other projects seem promising, but like all things, there is a high probability the developers will get stone-walled or lose interest and the project will die.
Anyway, back to the laptop thing!
Can this be really true; "I'm guessing that IBM fell in love with Linux because it cost them nothing to acquire an OS that was largely functional, arguably "superior" to anything else available, and constantly worked on, for free, by thousands of other programmers that IBM is under no obligation to compensate in any way, other than to make a mention of them in some GPL text somewhere...." And, I am quite sure that others can back me up on this statement. IBM, as far as it can be remembered poured millions of dollars into the development of Linux (fought a law suit against the Microsoft reportedly backed SCO....) and have even "donated' Source-Codes (in a way similarly to what the OS/2 World Foundation was asking IBM to do for the OS/2 Community). Let us see what others have to say about this. ???
Right, but the whole point is, Linux as an OS existed before IBM did research to develop AIX, and due to the open nature of Linux, advancements in the main linux body is also easily incorporated into AIX, even if IBM didnt develop those enhancements.
Re: "even if IBM didn't develop those enhancements". Case in point - there was an wholesale transfer by IBM of the Journaling File System (JFS) (specifically developed for OS/2) to the Linux Operating System. Also, with regards to "Linux as an OS existed before IBM did research to develop AIX". As history will show... if fact "AIX Version 1, introduced in 1986 for the IBM 6150 RT workstation, was based on UNIX System V Releases 1 and 2. In developing AIX, IBM and INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation (whom IBM contracted) also incorporated source code from 4.2 and 4.3BSD UNIX.
Among other variants, IBM later produced AIX Version 3 (also known as AIX/6000), based on System V Release 3, for their IBM POWER-based RS/6000 platform. Since 1990, AIX has served as the primary operating system for the RS/6000 series (now called System p by IBM).
AIX Version 4, introduced in 1994, added symmetric multiprocessing with the introduction of the first RS/6000 SMP servers. AIX Version 4 continued to evolve though the 1990s culminating with AIX 4.3.3 in 1999...." and was not developed after "Linux as an OS existed before IBM did research to develop AIX" as you appear to be saying.
You may wish to try this link for additional information on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIX_operating_system
Sajin.. I think you got your timelines a bit off.. AIX is in fact an older product then Linux.
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.04.01, 05:39:52
Right, but the whole point is, Linux as an OS existed before IBM did research to develop AIX, and due to the open nature of Linux, advancements in the main linux body is also easily incorporated into AIX, even if IBM didnt develop those enhancements.
:-D Yeah, I'm a moron. I admit, I assumed AIX was based off Linux (derivative of UNIX), I had no idea it was a derivative of UNIX itself. Whooops. Hubris is a bitch, innit? Oh well, my point about getting enhancements they can use in AIX from the linux community stands. They dont have to pay those people! That saves them a ton of money, does it not? If OS/2 could have been like that, they would have had no reason to murder it off, as it would not have become such a financial burden. Or thats how I see it, I dont really know what went on there :\ Just they buggered us and I'm pissed.
Linux is actually a free clone of unix and early versions didn't share anything in common with any unix derivative except for the GNU tools.
OS/2 was murdered off because in IBM's culture the product had no purpose. IBM was the mainframe, the mainframe was IBM. Even the RS/6000 workstations were ugly ducklings to the server guys. Then comes along IBM Personal Systems.. and this product which actually could do most if not all of what the servers could do (even if not at the same scale). There was little if any markup in the personal sector. Even at 200 dollars a pop OS/2 could not cover it's own cost of development and support. IBM never sold computers to John Doe Everyman.. unless of course that was John Doe Everyman CEO. They couldn't see that licensing and volume would be the way of the PC. They were used to selling one system with everything needed to run it for 200,000 and then billing hourly for support. No one can fault IBM for wanting out of the pool after they dangled their toes in it.
It is hard to effectively market a product when your sales people don't even believe in it, and when the company footing the bill doesn't even know why they are doing it. I am sure there were some people within the structure of IBM which recognized the potential in the PC. Especially when coupled with a system which was as power as OS/2. (the proof is that even though OS/2 has changed very little since the early days of development it is still in use today. I can sit someone down in front of my PC at home running eCS and they think I'm running XP with a custom theme). The problem was, IBM mainframe division was the cash cow, and what they wanted they got. What they wanted was nothing which could compete with their domination of the server market, especially not something which was significantly less expensive and even worse, made by IBM. =)
IBM's Linux effort is more of a slight against Microsoft then anything to do with AIX. IBM still maintains AIX. Linux was a way to support Windows network architecture on their VM platforms without the overhead (expense and processing power) of Windows. It also was in a way IBM saying, "you may have won, but watch your back" =)
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.04.02, 06:44:53
:-D Yeah, I'm a moron. I admit, I assumed AIX was based off Linux (derivative of UNIX), I had no idea it was a derivative of UNIX itself. Whooops. Hubris is a bitch, innit? Oh well, my point about getting enhancements they can use in AIX from the linux community stands. They dont have to pay those people! That saves them a ton of money, does it not? If OS/2 could have been like that, they would have had no reason to murder it off, as it would not have become such a financial burden. Or thats how I see it, I dont really know what went on there :\ Just they buggered us and I'm pissed.
We read you "Saijin_Naib" loud and clear. So; ok, calm down you are in good hands like those of "Robert Deed" et al. Re: Oh well, my point about getting enhancements they can use in AIX from the Linux community stands. They don't have to pay those people! That saves them a ton of money, does it not? (while I cannot give you any exact figures.... IBM cash contributions to the development of Linux was reported to be in the tens of millions and surpassed any other company's cash contribution in this respect) Also, "If OS/2 could have been like that, they would have had no reason to murder it off, as it would not have become such a financial burden". From all appearances OS/2 continues to make money for IBM and could very well be one of the reasons why IBM is very reluctant to Open-Source the Source-Codes. Also, among other issues involving the Microsoft Corporation... it is reported that it was IBM's own marketing strategies that slowed OS/2's adoption in the market place.
Anyway, do not give up hope just yet "Saijin_Naib" - Keep your eyes on the Sparrow that is (CASSINI). ;)