[Cadaver]

As a shocker to most Mac users, as well as to myself, I find I really like Windows Vista. I've got Vista Ultimate (my work paid for it) installed on my Mac Pro on a spare hard drive (a 74GB 10K RPM Raptor, actually). I've also got Office 2007, the Citrix ICA client, Firefox 2, Photoshop Elements 5 and Acrobat 8 Pro installed.

I'm a huge Apple fanboy as most of you here know, but I actually like the look & feel of Vista (especially the Aero black theme). Window fades are very nice, font smoothing (ClearType) seems much better than WinXP and OS X, and overall performance is very nice (better be on a $3,000 machine).

Required by my career, I spend tons of time in Word and PowerPoint. Word 2004 for the Mac is pretty good. PowerPoint 2004 is fair at best (I do prefer Keynote). Excel 2004 for the Mac is fine, though fortunately I'm not a huge Excel user. I must say, however, I'm enjoying Office 2007. I've been playing with it all weekend, and I really like the "ribbon" interface. Live previews of formatting changes, many functions are less hidden, and performance is very snappy. Yeah, the ribbon does use up more vertical screenspace, but I'm on a 30" display, so doesn't bother me. And unlike Office 2008 for the Mac, it supports VBA macros

Now, I'm a self-admitted gadget freak, so perhaps I'm just having fun with a new toy, but I'm actually kinda liking it.

Damn, I hate when I do this.

(I start to ramble here, so please feel free to skip...)

I went from Mac OS 9 to Windows 2000 (mainly because of 9's stability issues). Spent about 18 months using that before moving to OS X, but it was probably almost another year before moving completely to OS X (10.2) due to the lack of stability initially in Office v.X.

I have a home-built AMD AthlonXP 3200+ machine running XP to handle the things I couldn't do on my G5 (G4 before that) via Virtual PC. Had it several years now, periodically making upgrades to it as necessary (its on its second case, second motherboard, second power supply, second set of RAM, second processor, third graphics card, second NIC, bigger HD, faster CD/DVD burner and added another LCD for dual displays). The machine has reached its limit, though, as its AthlonXP and AGP architecture is as upgraded as possible without replacing every component in the machine save the case and keyboard.

So its not like I'm a Windows noobie.

(back on topic...)

Anyway, just curious to know if I'm actually somehow living in bizzaro-world™ for liking Windows Vista. Seems like Vista is actually pushing many people to the Mac, not away from it. I actually like it.

[Parvez]

I have Office 2007 and it's amazing. You can do so much more with it and has a lot of options too. I use it for school projects/assignments, and other stuffs.

[molarszbt18]

You like it cuz vista is based off the Tiger software..no shocker

[goMac]

I think it has to do with Vista being new. New software has a general fuzzy feeling associated with it. It'll fade. I felt that Vista was pretty nice, but as I used it for a while on my PC it got annoying, and I actually sold my PC.

[TheoCryst]

If you're in bizzaro-world™, then somehow I got sucked in with you. I used Windows for ten years: from 95 to XP and everything in between (except Me, thank God) and only switched to the Mac a little over a year ago. I adapted quickly, and almost overnight became a huge Mac fanboy. During the past year I've had only limited Windows usage, mostly for one or two engineering programs that don't have Mac versions.

Fast-forward to now. I got a free copy of Vista Business from my Uni's MSDNAA account, and installed it last weekend. I don't know what it is, but there's just something about it that feels so much better than XP ever did. Granted, it's not amazing enough to make me seriously consider switching back, but I've found myself rebooting pretty often these past seven days...

Office 2007, on the other hand, is just freaking amazing. I haven't gotten the ODF-convertor to work yet, which is a deal breaker for me, but once it does I'll be waving OOo good-bye faster than you can say "Ribbons are really cool."

My bet's that I just like Vista right now cuz its shiny and new. I'm sure I'll forget all about it when I get my hands on Leopard in a few months.

Oh, but Flip3D still sucks.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by molarszbt18 

You like it cuz vista is based off the Tiger software..

Um....No. It's based on "What people seem to like," just like Tiger is. MS did their thing differently, it just looks similar. A BMW might look like a Honda or vice versa, because they're both cars, but they do things differently in Tokyo and Munich, and so their cars are different. There's no stealing going on, just doing the same sort of thing with different code.

Yes, this sort of statement DOES bother me. It's because such statements are either out of ignorance or out of a desire to get people angry. Well it got me angry, but not the way it may have been intended.

[Apfhex]

Vista is pretty, and probably overall better than XP. But a few things...

• Performs well on my Mac Pro but I'm not sure I like how SuperFetch is always using all your RAM (meaning it has to pageout when you do something it doesn't expect, right?). I guess I can't complain unless I notice a significant performance hit.
• The new permissions setup (which is vague and I don't really get it yet) makes doing rudimentary tasks annoying and complicated. Running as an Admin I don't seem to be able to do many things (like create Shortcuts in just about anywhere but the Desktop) without jumping through hoops. It's also fiendishly unclear how to get a CMD window to run with elevated privileges. Also prevented Firefox from becoming default browser (somehow I fixed it though).
• UAC makes doing rudimentary tasks annoying, but seems to offer greatly increased protection. "Seems" being the key word.
• Flip 3D is stupid and useless.
• Sidebar Gadgets are really sucky compared to Dashboard. The Weather one doesn't seem to work at all — it's always 39ºF and cloudy. Doesn't come with many default ones and browsing for new ones online is unpleasant.
• ClearType does seem a litter better than XP, but still bad compared to OS X, IMHO.
• File searching is fast and comparable to Spotlight, but doesn't make up for all those years of non-functional XP searching I had to put up with.

Aero bothered me at first because of how colorful it was (still nothing like Luna in XP!!!), but I changed the color settings to something less saturated and used a grayer wallpaper as well and it's a lot better. Here's how I have it setup on my Mac Pro:


I'm not much of an Office user so I haven't tried 2007. I'm sure it's better and I'll look forward to 2008 for Mac, but for now I'd much rather use Keynote for presentations and Pages or something for writing papers.

[molarszbt18]

All Vista is, is an update to XP, XP is an update to Win ME, Me was an update to 98, 98 was to 95...and so on. Windows has yet to create a new OS since they started. This is why Vista will be just as hackable as the rest of there crap

[Philip J. Fry]

Originally Posted by Parvez 

I have Office 2007 and it's amazing. You can do so much more with it and has a lot of options too. I use it for school projects/assignments, and other stuffs.

Agreed. I went out and bought Office 2007 last night and so far, it's amazing.

[kylemacr]

I think UAS will backfire. It will just train people to click "Yes". 90% of people have no idea what the message means, and even I found myself clicking yes without looking.

[Big Mac]

What's so amazing about the new version of Office, and what are ribbons?

[mac128k-1984]

I too was surprised by Vista and to be honest I like it. I disagree with the other posters with regard to the widgests. I like how vista has them as a sidebar which means I don't need any key combination/mouse button to see them and the weatherbug widget, err gadget works fine on my computer.

Memory management seems a little better then OSX but I'll chalk that up to the fact that so few UB apps actually exist. It seems in general applications running under rosetta take double the ram then running natively under a PPC computer.

UAC is a kludge, there's no way around this. It is annoying and most people will be turning it off or blindly hitting hitting yes in short order.

I'm looking forward to see what leopard looks and acts like. I believe apple will yet again leap frog them and while I am impressed with vista, I have to say it took 5 years for this? I am underwhelmed with vista when I consider that it took 5 years.

Office 2007, this blows the doors off of the mac offce suite. I'm sorry and I feel like a traitor but its just light years ahead of office mac. For what ever reason MS seems to cripple office mac with performance issues, lack of VBA and substandard features. I have some fairly complex spreadsheets, some of which use some complex VBA scripts and while I am use office v.X (not 2004) the performance difference is sad. What takes minutes to run on my MacPro takes seconds under vista/office 2007. this issue is not a Vista vs. OSX issue but rather how poorly of a job MacBU has done with office.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by molarszbt18 

All Vista is, is an update to XP, XP is an update to Win ME, Me was an update to 98, 98 was to 95...and so on. Windows has yet to create a new OS since they started. This is why Vista will be just as hackable as the rest of there crap

Wrong. They completely rewrote a lot of the core code, enough so that the innards are very different from XP. Windows ME was NOT an "update" to 98-it was an attempt to combine the ease of use of 98 with the security of NT4, and a failure at that. 98 was only something of an update of 95-if you'd ever run both of them you'd have seen the difference.

Windows itself (starting with V3) was a "new OS", and Windows 95 was too. Completely and utterly new, both of them. The fact that some modules were reused from other, earlier products does not make them any less new. It did, however, make 95 vulnerable to outside intrusions, but MS didn't think about networking until the market forced them to. By that time it was too late. With 98 they tried to correct this and made a lot of progress, but missed the simple stuff-who'd have thought that a simple parser, maybe 50 lines of code, could be a security problem? XP is totally different from 95/98, including a lot of brand new code. Vista has an entirely new kernel.

Again, statements like this are useful only for stirring things up. When stating an opinion, say so. Otherwise someone might take your statements as being a reflection of the truth, which in this case they are NOT.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Wrong. They completely rewrote a lot of the core code, enough so that the innards are very different from XP. Windows ME was NOT an "update" to 98-it was an attempt to combine the ease of use of 98 with the security of NT4, and a failure at that. 98 was only something of an update of 95-if you'd ever run both of them you'd have seen the difference.

Actually, it's still running just an upgraded version of the NT kernel, so it shares the same internals with XP. A lot of the OS is still skinned XP stuff. Originally they planned to rewrite a lot of the OS in .Net, but with all the delays, it just didn't plan out.

So really you're both right. It's not entirely a re-write, but it's not entirely XP.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Actually, it's still running just an upgraded version of the NT kernel, so it shares the same internals with XP. A lot of the OS is still skinned XP stuff. Originally they planned to rewrite a lot of the OS in .Net, but with all the delays, it just didn't plan out.

So really you're both right. It's not entirely a re-write, but it's not entirely XP.

While they didn't get all of the new kernel rewritten in .net, they DID rewrite a substantial part of it. Depending on where you read, anywhere from 50%-90% is "new code." That means a lot of buffers are now checked, a lot of address ranges are now constrained, and so on. Basically what you're saying is like saying "this new car isn't really a new model because they used the same water pump and alternator from last year's model." They apparently actually went through a lot of the kernel at a very low level and it's quite different. As are a lot of the extensions. That's not to say that I think Microsoft got a ton of assembly language coders together and they rewrote much at the bit level, just that they did a whole lot of "new" work. But then OS X is not a complete rewrite of Berkley either...

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Windows ME was NOT an "update" to 98-it was an attempt to combine the ease of use of 98 with the security of NT4, and a failure at that. 98 was only something of an update of 95-if you'd ever run both of them you'd have seen the difference.

Windows ME didn't use the NT kernel — it was basically just a few improvements to the 98 codebase, as far as I'm aware. Win2K and XP (both NT-based) quickly replaced it because it was so backwards.

[Sub]

I used WInME for about 3 years, directly after 98 and 95, and it was much more secure.

[molarszbt18]

Like .Net is so much better... They need to use Unix or Linux as there backbone for security purposes, a lot of people are starting to see just how dangerous Windows is, Vista or not. Actually Vista has already been hacked not sure if there was an update published, this was in an article from last week I believe

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Windows ME didn't use the NT kernel — it was basically just a few improvements to the 98 codebase, as far as I'm aware. Win2K and XP (both NT-based) quickly replaced it because it was so backwards.

I never said it did use anything from NT-just that MS tried to add the security of NT to 98. And they wound up with their worst OS since Bob-that's saying something. ME wasn't backward, it was just plain BAD. The worst thing to happen to any PC that I can think of is to have ME on it, it's really THAT awful.

Originally Posted by Sub 

I used WInME for about 3 years, directly after 98 and 95, and it was much more secure.

But I'll bet you didn't have the flexibility you did with 98. Gaming was pretty harshly impacted, and configuration in general...what's the word I'm looking for... Oh yeah! It SUCKED.

Yes, I do have a strong opinion about Windows ME. Why do you ask?

[Sherman Homan]

Several years ago I was at a seminar and a question was asked about data security. The speaker replied: "The best way to make sure that no one can ever get access to your files is to install Windows ME. Guaranteed that your files will never be seen again...!"

[molarszbt18]

If I use Windows its not connected to the internet or intranet i just dont like the security of it at all.

[stray8]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Windows ME didn't use the NT kernel — it was basically just a few improvements to the 98 codebase, as far as I'm aware. Win2K and XP (both NT-based) quickly replaced it because it was so backwards.

Windows Me was utterly bad... but iirc the "security" aspect was pretty marginal, it was basically a home OS on par with MCE for the time, mostly based on multimedia features (WMP 9) and photo organizing, etc. It came out after 2000, which was the secure corporate OS, and was intended to be the last DOS based Windows.

As far as Vista however, from my understanding it's based on a polished Server 2003 kernel... which was a clean up of the XP kernel. Aside from WGF and a few other features they basically rewrote it's the same old Windows.

After a few years away from the Mac (I never really could get into the early versions of OSX), after running some pre-release copies of Vista I decided it was a good time to switch back. I'm happy to see M$ push the x64 platform alot more, but meh... that's about it.

edit: oh wait I think Me had some kind of bundle-in with McAfee... I think that was the "security" feature.

[pyrite]

there should be no argument about how bad winME was - if it were human, i'd string it up myself

[abbaZaba]

bad to the bone

[allblue]

Irrespective of Vista's merits as an OS (after five years and a reported $10bn development it has to be at least half decent surely!) the EULA strikes me as extraordinary. When you activate the OS you agree to allow Windows Defender (I think it's called) which, among other things, grants Microsoft access to your hard drive at any time, where they can delete any bit of software or data they choose without telling you. This is a DRM/piracy thing I guess, but what the hell? Admittedly I only read this quickly in one article (Vista is something that will be happening to other people, not me) and I may have not quite got the whole story, but when considering the two OSs the conduct of the company behind it is a big issue. Microsoft are a company that has consistently "abused their dominant position in the marketplace" cf.all the various court cases they've lost, and for that reason alone I don't want to have anything to do with them on principle.

[AppleOptionFour]

I wish Vista had a more exposé like feature.

The Windows-Tab thing is nice but its kinda like using Alt-Tab. Doesn't really save me any time like Exposé would.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by allblue 

Irrespective of Vista's merits as an OS (after five years and a reported $10bn development it has to be at least half decent surely!) the EULA strikes me as extraordinary. When you activate the OS you agree to allow Windows Defender (I think it's called) which, among other things, grants Microsoft access to your hard drive at any time, where they can delete any bit of software or data they choose without telling you. This is a DRM/piracy thing I guess, but what the hell?

Yeah, the EULA and DRM in Vista are ridiculous to the point where I wouldn't use it even if it actually were far and away the Bestest OS Evar. Security may be the "killer feature" in Vista, but treating the user like a criminal seems to be the one they spent the most time on.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by allblue 

... which, among other things, grants Microsoft access to your hard drive at any time, where they can delete any bit of software or data they choose without telling you.

That's the #1 showstopper for me, even beyond the cost. Ain't NOBODY snooping on my hard drive!

[Cadaver]

A NAT router, a good firewall and careful installation of only valid software (and sifting through any MS updates) should stop most snooping.

[mitchell_pgh]

I don't have XP... I use it from time to time, and enjoy the speed of it at times.

That being said, when I just need to get something done... and in a hurry, my Mac is my bread and butter. Sometimes it silly things... but XP just isn't designed for me.

[wyatt]

I'm lo0oking forward to seeing Vista, especially with the good reviews here. But I won't for some time, I always seem to make the conversion to the next Windows about the time all the software I use get adapted especially for it; so, probably in a year or so I'll give it a whirl.

I have used Mac and MS for what seems like forever, MS-Dos from 3.3, Mac from System 4.1. For years and years each had its advantage over the other. I remember the windows 2.0 (which was crude and useless) and the first major shift to Windows with 3.1 (which was slower and less efficent than Dos, but we got WYSIWYG...weeee). And I remember when Macs added extensions, which was the end of the era when macs really were crash-proof.

For the last 5 years or so, I have found OSX and XP to have reached parity. Either is as good as the other and either handles everything as well, it's all about ergonomics now, which OS pleases the user more (security is a non-factor me, it takes minimum effort and no cash to properly secure XP); though Windows definitely has the software and hardware compatibility edge I'm not bothered by MS taking 5 years between major OS upgrades, it takes me that long to depreciate my computer for work; to me 5 years is a very short life-span for a work instrument (my TI-81 turns 17 this year); plus, I got real sick of Apple rendering my software obsolete every year or so with each OSX upgrade.

The nice thing is I can run both. No reason to choose.

[Macola]

Originally Posted by wyatt 

The nice thing is I can run both. No reason to choose.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by allblue 

...which, among other things, grants Microsoft access to your hard drive at any time, where they can delete any bit of software or data they choose without telling you.

Originally Posted by ghporter 

That's the #1 showstopper for me, even beyond the cost.

Is this REALLY true? I mean, I assume it's possible with many systems, but is it really that easy and built into Vista as a "feature"???

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by The Wolf 

Is this REALLY true? I mean, I assume it's possible with many systems, but is it really that easy and built into Vista as a "feature"???

It's quite possible to have Vista "phone home" and build the firewall so that it is not able to block such calls. Whether that's what they did or not is another matter-the important part is that this is part of the EULA so they WANT to do this. And so I don't want to give them any money.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by The Wolf 

Is this REALLY true? I mean, I assume it's possible with many systems, but is it really that easy and built into Vista as a "feature"???

I'm not sure if it's in Windows Defender, but the EULA definitely suggests that Windows might delete software from your disk without your consent.

[iLoooveMeSomeMac]

yeah, you are bad

[gentryfunk]

I am a Mac user that also runs Windows on an AMD 3200 (I built the machine) and I have Vista for work....and it ran like a dog on my machine...with 1 GB RAM this dog barks all day long. My video card did not display Aero and I was really, really tired of answering questions every time I wanted to delete a file....especially if the file was on the desktop.

I actually reverted to Windows 2000 after a couple of weeks of that nightmare (Windows XP does not add anything for me; Windows 2000 is very stable)....while I have friends who like the Aero interface, they have had to upgrade hardware (new video cards, more RAM) to get the new features....

Windows Vista *may* be a better OS in some ways (security?), but in my day to day use....definitely not for me...