F2bnp wrote:

It's a little unfair to call Vista "ME-II".

I don't agree.
I think it's totally fair (and appropriate) to refer to Vista as Windows ME-II.

F2bnp wrote:

ME was nothing more than Win98 with a fancier theme

And Vista was primarily about pushing eye candy.
I don't see a difference there.

F2bnp wrote:

Windows ME's big issue was general instability

Root causes different in Vista. Same result.

F2bnp wrote:

They are quite similar disasters in terms of scale

I actually think Vista was much larger disaster.

Vista required substantial hardware upgrades (time, effort, money) to use and in return you got a glitchy OS that in some cases barely functioned.

It was in fact so bad that OEMs (including major players like Dell) were ACTUALLY SELLING systems with Linux installed from the factory.

OEM sales with Vista as the OS were so poor that MS had to offer a roll-back program to XP for OEMs to agree to offering Vista over XP as the installed OS.

The only people *I saw* that left ME or Vista on their PC for any length of time were the PC semi-illiterate types that by default use whatever OS their machine came with from the factory.
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vetz wrote:

dr_st wrote:

It appears that WinME never recovered from its faults, while Vista did. Even if it was too late for its reputation. Then again, I never used WinME enough to know for sure...

I remember back in 1999 I installed WinME, was quite happy with it (albeit the system was abit slower), but then I noticed it had no "Restart to DOS" option in the Shut Down menu. That day I went back to Windows 98SE, and I've never gone back to WinME.

Insofar as my own machines (vs customer machines) I skipped both ME and Vista.
I have better things to do than work out bugs in my own equipment.
.

Vista was a good OS, even without service packs and much improved with them. It was much more reliable and secure than XP, and on modern hardware, made more efficient use of resources as well. The eye candy was optional and with a good GPU improved desktop performance. I ran it a few months after launch on a Pentium D with 1 GB RAM on a crappy SiS chipset and it was fine. (I got tired of constant performance decay and security problems in XP.)

What screwed Vista over is OEMs pushing outdated, crappy hardware that was too underpowered to run Vista. XP let them push 2004's bottom barrel for years as new. The real tragedy is that XP lived much longer than it should have, especially as Vista was late to launch by a few years. The Linux machines you mention were usually only netbooks had high return rates. I like Linux, but I don't kid myself on religiously pushing it to normal. (I also think that was the last chance for Linux on the desktop to become mainstream, but that's another story.)

ME was just pushing the 9x kernel to its limits, and at the end of the line. 7 was basically minor updates for Vista and now that hardware had restabilized and OEMs couldn't push total shit out, it was a much better situation.

That's a good and well-written analysis, F2bnp and calvin.

My personal opinion on Vista is quite positive, but it might have easily not been such. It is only by chance that I happened to be building a desktop PC in the narrow timeframe when Vista was already mature and stable, and Win7 was not yet around. Had Win7 been around, I may have skipped Vista like many folks. But since I did not, and since I almost never upgrade the OS on existing PCs, and since that PC is still my primary desktop, I still run Vista to this day, and use it quite extensively.

I have a couple of newer laptops with Win7 on them, and I like some of the new features it introduces. I would not install Vista afresh today, because Win7 extends and improves on it, without any real drawbacks. It is clear to me that down the road Win7 will be "the last pure desktop Windows OS" and will make more sense for retro build than Vista. It's kind of like Win98 and Win98SE.

PCBONEZ wrote:

Insofar as my own machines (vs customer machines) I skipped both ME and Vista.
I have better things to do than work out bugs in my own equipment.

It is a bit surprising to see one with so much knowledge in technology as yourself display so much ignorance when it comes to Vista. I am not talking about the commercial fiasco it was (that's undisputed), but about the technical merits of the OS.

Then again, I cannot blame you. As I wrote above, I may have been just as ignorant, and just as negative about it, if opportunity did not bring Vista to my doorstep just at the right time.

calvin wrote:

Vista was a good OS ...... It was much more reliable and secure than XP ...... made more efficient use of resources as well ...... a good GPU improved desktop performance ...... I got tired of constant performance decay and security problems in XP.

Hardly.

Name one XP security issue post Vista release (concurrent with Vista) that was ACTUALLY a real world problem for anyone.
Most all supposed XP security issues at Vista's release were shared by Vista. That is typical in the NT OS progression.
MS OSs have been like that since the 90's. Unfixed problems are carried into the next version.
After an OS has been out 2 or 3 years, and if you look in deep detail what they actually are, most updates that MS tags as a "Security Update" would (in the real world) affect very few people and only in some very specific situations. For the vast majority of people they are non-issues or at the most really small ones.
MS uses that tag lines like "Security Updates" to terrorize people that don't know any better into upgrading. Especially with new OSs.
I'm not suggesting to not use Security Updates. It's easier to just install than research them in detail.
I'm saying the idea that Vista is more secure than XP is primarily marketing crap and a farce.

I have an XP build that's been untouched (beyond routine maintenance) since before I moved here so 7-8 years.
There is no 'performance decay' so long as you are diligent about keeping the internet supplied crap off and doing basic OS maintenance.
The only exception I've seen is people that try to use hard drives that are too full, but that's the same on all OSs.
You have to do the same maintenance in Vista.
Vista is worse about collecting internet crap. I've had to clean up some that were slower than dial-up within 6 months (whilst on DSL or cable).
Those same people (so same bad habits) while using XP could go 3 or 4 times longer before their machines got that bad.

calvin wrote:

The Linux machines you mention were usually only netbooks

Not really.
Not that I would ever buy a PC there, but when Vista was the new one I walked through the laptop section at a Walmart and there was a whole row of laptops with Linux installed.
4 or 5 different brands. 10-12 different models. (It was on some desktops too but I was only browsing laptops that day.)
I saw similar at CostCo.
When Linux is showing up even on department store PC's clearly MS's offering is so bad even the non-geek types know about it as common knowledge.

calvin wrote:

7 was basically minor updates for Vista and now that hardware had restabilized and OEMs couldn't push total shit out, it was a much better situation.

No. W7 got rid of the frilly, useless, resource eating, power wasting, crap that ruined Vista.
W7 runs just fine on pre-Vista machines ("total shit" as YOU say) so the hardware upgrades forced by Vista are not why W7 was an improvement over Vista.
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PCBONEZ wrote:

F2bnp wrote:

ME was nothing more than Win98 with a fancier theme

And Vista was primarily about pushing eye candy.
I don't see a difference there.

I'd disagree that ME was 98 with a fancier theme. They just reused Win2k's icons and color scheme that were, deep down, 256-color icons just like in good old Windows 98, but they were just a more pleasant design for high-color displays (whereas Windows 98 looks better on 4-bit and 8-bit color modes IMHO) - so I would not call them fancier in any way. Windows VIsta's UI was Microsoft's attempt to bring Windows to a more up-to-date status when compared to MacOS/OSX and Linux, as XP already looked ancient by then.

Anyway Vista wasn't just about pushing eye candy - good chunks of the OS were revamped, a much stricter documentation/quality assurance guidelines were in place and they even introduced a brand new driver model and changed a bunch of subsystems (like audio and networking) for improved stability. The eye candy was the least of Vista's trouble - that could be disabled with a few clicks (which I did back in the day, as I dislike Aero) - but dropping GDI acceleration probably didn't do them any favors.

PCBONEZ wrote:

F2bnp wrote:

Windows ME's big issue was general instability

Root causes different in Vista. Same result.

Vista's problem was crap performance, as once drivers matured (which didn't take that long) it was rock-solid. ME was troublesome because it was unstable - and could not blame the drivers, since WDM and VxD had been around for a while - but rather because of features like System Restore and the "beta" shell (IE 5.5 bundled with ME had a lower build number than the final version IIRC). The removal of DOS mode didn't help - Windows 9x is not very robust by definition and MS-DOS mode made it easier to maintain and to recover files without a bootdisk. So the results were that an unpatched/non-tweaked ME would be more unstable than 98SE, whereas Vista with good drivers and a powerful machine was a pleasant experience (at least once you tweak it a bit).

PCBONEZ wrote:

F2bnp wrote:

They are quite similar disasters in terms of scale

I actually think Vista was much larger disaster.

Agreed... ME was just some comemorative version of Windows 98 with a bunch of features jammed into the aging 9x kernel - it was never meant to be Microsoft's main OS in the same way. Windows 2000 was already there (and suitable for home usage), and XP was just around the corner - MS never relied on Millenium for much, and it was for home users only. Vista was supposed to take XP out of the equation both on home PCs and in the corporate world. Microsoft tried EVERYTHING to push Vista, but the more they pushed the worse things became. In the end it failed miserably as they even had to extend XP's support life cycle.

Interestingly enough, though, ME just died a silent death whereas Vista's "offsprings" dominate the market.

F2bnp wrote:

with OEMs installing Vista even on their crappiest laptops

Now... don't blame OEMs for Microsoft's own screw ups. Microsoft claimed all editions of Vista needed 512MB, and recommended 1GB whereas for Windows 7 and 8, both of which are better optimized and known to be more memory efficient than their predecessor, they claimed 32-bit versions needed 1GB and 64-bit ones needed 2GB. They basically made OEMs put Vista in underpowered computers so they would not sell those with Windows XP, and we all know how that ended up hurting Vista more than helping.

I never had any trouble with Vista. SP1 was already out when I upgraded, which probably helped a lot.

WinME on the other hand...yikes. Course, I could say the same thing about Win98. Win9x in general was just a wonky, unstable mess of an OS

>Name one XP security issue post Vista release (concurrent with Vista) that was ACTUALLY a real world problem for anyone.

It's because of these patches that they don't become serious issues. Vista's major changes to the system improved things in this regard - UAC got everyone to stop running as admin 24/7.

>MS uses that tag lines like "Security Updates" to terrorize people that don't know any better into upgrading. Especially with new OSs.

Except MS patches their OSes for security for a long time. 2000 got 10 years and XP got 13 years worth of patches, and the embedded variants still do.

>I'm not suggesting to not use Security Updates. It's easier to just install than research them in detail.
>I'm saying the idea that Vista is more secure than XP is primarily marketing crap and a farce.

Except many things WERE changed technically.

>I have an XP build that's been untouched (beyond routine maintenance) since before I moved here so 7-8 years.
>There is no 'performance decay' so long as you are diligent about keeping the internet supplied crap off and doing basic OS maintenance.

In my experiences, XP requires reinstalls to maintain peak performance - Vista and 7 I have no need unless you're installing malware.

>The only exception I've seen is people that try to use hard drives that are too full, but that's the same on all OSs.
>You have to do the same maintenance in Vista.

Much less so with Vista and 7 and such.

>Vista is worse about collecting internet crap. I've had to clean up some that were slower than dial-up within 6 months (whilst on DSL or cable).
>Those same people (so same bad habits) while using XP could go 3 or 4 times longer before their machines got that bad.

This is the total opposite in my experience.

>Not that I would ever buy a PC there, but when Vista was the new one I walked through the laptop section at a Walmart and there was a whole row of laptops with Linux installed.
>4 or 5 different brands. 10-12 different models. (It was on some desktops too but I was only browsing laptops that day.)
I saw similar at CostCo.

I imagine most of these were netbook class systems - even then, did they sell many, and how many got refunded?

>When Linux is showing up even on department store PC's clearly MS's offering is so bad even the non-geek types know about it as common knowledge.

Linux isn't terribly common knowledge for normals, even with the time.

>No. W7 got rid of the frilly, useless, resource eating, power wasting, crap that ruined Vista.
>W7 runs just fine on pre-Vista machines ("total shit" as YOU say) so the hardware upgrades forced by Vista are not why W7 was an improvement over Vista.

Windows 7 keeps Aero and all the "crap." I agree 7 runs better - it's a more optimized OS. Vista had to make things move to an upgraded platform though.

PCBONEZ wrote:

Name one XP security issue post Vista release (concurrent with Vista) that was ACTUALLY a real world problem for anyone.

Name one security issue EVER that was ACTUALLY a problem for anyone. Except the Blaster worm, of course, which was an issue on an unpatched XP.

PCBONEZ wrote:

Most all supposed XP security issues at Vista's release were shared by Vista. That is typical in the NT OS progression.
MS OSs have been like that since the 90's. Unfixed problems are carried into the next version.

Name one. You have no clue, do you? Just talking for the sake of talk.

PCBONEZ wrote:

I'm saying the idea that Vista is more secure than XP is primarily marketing crap and a farce.

Many security mechanisms were completely rewritten in Vista. People with actual knowledge of the internals of both OSes (i.e., not you, and not me either) will tell you this, and they will also say that the OS is better for it. Whether it has any practical implications is a different story. I feel perfectly secure with Win98 as well.

PCBONEZ wrote:

Vista is worse about collecting internet crap.

No, it isn't. Just like you have your share of anecdotes to show that it is, I have my own to show that it is not. I see no point in trading anecdotes.

calvin wrote:

No. W7 got rid of the frilly, useless, resource eating, power wasting, crap that ruined Vista.

Crap like what? Talking for the sake of talking again?
Win7 added some specific performance improvements (for example, parallel loading of drivers at boot, but that only affects boot) and a few other responsiveness improvements (by making the UI wait less while tasks are performed in the background). A few others were already implemented in Vista before Win7 came out, and there were also some actual bugs fixed (like slow copying over network).

There will be no noticeable performance differences running Vista or Win7 on the same hardware since pretty much Vista SP1.

@calvin
It suffices to say. - I don't like Vista. Never did. Never will. And I thought it was crap and a wasted effort.
I already said why I have that opinion and I have better things to do today. (Helping someone out.)
- Enjoy your Vista.

> I imagine most of these were netbook class systems.
No. I have never wanted a netbook so I have never looked at them.
I don't use Celerons either. Same basic reason.
.

alexanrs wrote:

ME was troublesome because it was unstable - and could not blame the drivers, since WDM and VxD had been around for a while

From what I remember reading the thing about ME is that it allowed both WDM and VxD drivers to coexist as a sort of stepping stone to the new driver model, but in practice mixing the two together led to a very unstable system. OEM PCs with a full WDM driver set were supposedly rock solid.

As an anecdote, the computer I had running Windows ME back then ran pretty stable with the OEM install, but after a hard drive failure and subsequent installation of a retail copy of the OS it would never be the same - maybe VxD drivers were added into the mix without realizing it.

WDM was introduced in Windows 98 (the first edition), and you could mix them up since then... after all you could still install Windows 95 drivers in 98, and not all 98 drivers are WDM.

If the drivers are mature, WDM is preferred. Of course sometimes that might not be the case (early Creative WDM drivers), and to play DOS games WDM drivers aren't always desired - as you lose OPL3 support with those. It could also be that the hardware is old, and VxD drivers were released back when they were relevant, and then Microsoft made WDM drivers and bundled with ME (or even 98) which are supposed to get things working, though not as fast or not as full-featured... Yamaha OPL3SAX' drivers come to mind. Ultimately the whole driver thing is complicated, and 9x' lack of robustness doesn't do anyone any favors.

In the end I avoid ME on retro machines not because of issues (the few times I installed it it was no worse than 98 once configured well), but because I find it boring.

I also have one here. But I only use it for 32-bit software, that's why i chose going for the 32-bit version of windows 7.

I don't see any reason to use a 32bit version of Windows 7 at all considering it runs 32 bit applications fine. The additional ram available to the OS is more than worth it. If I need 16 bit I just fire up vmware with XP in it and bam, got what I need.

IMHO if your machine has less than 4GB of RAM you might be better off running the 32-bit versions as they are a bit lighter.

PCBONEZ wrote:

... MS uses that tag lines like "Security Updates" to terrorize people that don't know any better into upgrading. Especially with new OSs ...

Heh heh. Paradigmatic examples:

Microsoft Warns Windows 7 Has 'Serious Problems'

Microsoft says new processors 'will only work with Windows 10'

FUDding to death your best products in an attempt to promote your turds has the risk of biting you in the arse in the long term, however.

RoyBatty wrote:

I don't see any reason to use a 32bit version of Windows 7 at all considering it runs 32 bit applications fine. The additional ram available to the OS is more than worth it. If I need 16 bit I just fire up vmware with XP in it and bam, got what I need.

One might have a 32-bit CPU. Like my Thinkpad X32 (which dual-boots Win7 and WinXP).

dr_st wrote:

PCBONEZ wrote:

Insofar as my own machines (vs customer machines) I skipped both ME and Vista.
I have better things to do than work out bugs in my own equipment.

It is a bit surprising to see one with so much knowledge in technology as yourself display so much ignorance when it comes to Vista. I am not talking about the commercial fiasco it was (that's undisputed), but about the technical merits of the OS.

I know enough about new MS OSs to not use them until they've been out a couple of years to let someone else figure out all the problems.
That would be called wisdom.

Vista was flaky POS when it was released and would have required upgrading my equipment.
I have multiple machines so it would have been a large expense and a huge waste of my time sorting out problems on all of them.
By the time they fixed all the things that should have been fixed BEFORE it was released W7 was on the horizon - and it didn't require upgrading my hardware.
.
Vista would have been an expensive waste of my time and I'm very glad I skipped it.
It was the smart move.
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PCBONEZ wrote:

I know enough about new MS OSs to not use them until they've been out a couple of years to let someone else figure out all the problems.
That would be called wisdom.

Vista was flaky POS when it was released and would have required upgrading my equipment.

Precisely.

A couple of years later it was a mature and stable OS, and has been ever since.

Relative to Win7, I don't have anything against Vista. However, I don't see much point in it. It ended up not getting much more (if any more) support than WinXP, so I don't think there's much it can do that XP can't do, and I'd rather use XP. The only reason to use Vista would be if someone likes it better than XP, but other than that, it's not very useful IMO.

I've never played a DirectX 10 game, but from what I gather, DX10 was underwhelming.

As an XP user I've started noticing some modern games that don't support XP, but those almost always have Win7 as the minimum requirement. Very few are satisfied with Vista. I think the same is true with non-game software.
I think Vista ends up being mostly irrelevant from a compatibility standpoint, much like WinMe and Win2k are. (I like Win2k, but XP runs the same stuff and a lot that Win2k won't). I can see myself having a Win7 machine someday, but Vista will probably be ignored.