Vista RC2 released

[nemo]

Drivers should not be at beta stage by now. It goes RTM in a months time for heavens sake!

if the operating system still has 1400+ bugs, what makes you think that most of those bugs aren't affecting drivers? you can't have stable drivers until you have a final os.

[Xab]

You really can't expect every vendor to release optimized drivers for every card for a pre-release OS. I'd expect the final driver package to be one of the last components to get signed off on.

You'll want to go troll over to your vendor's support structure and rant there, if you want to place the "blame" where it exists.

There's a good reason why beta software is not often released to the general public, every self-proclaimed "power user" starts predicting the end of the world.

Uh, when we are less than one month away from RTM, I expect things to be pretty well finished. Are they supposed to wait until the first day of RTM to release a proper driver, so we can all be the testers on a final product, instead of during beta when such things are supposed to be tested?

If we were in early beta and there were no drivers, it would be somewhat more acceptable. A month from final product? Drivers should be top notch and in tons of peoples hands testing them for the final release.

What are you going to say when you have Vista RTM and your video driver is a buggy piece of crap because nvidia didn't get around to releasing it beforehand so it could be TESTED during TESTING STAGE? Then people will complain.

It's microsoft's fault NVIDIA don't make correct working driveres. DAMN YOU MICROSOFT, DAMN YOU FOR NOT LETTING NVIDIA MAKE GOOD DRIVERS!

</Sarcastic>

anyway, it's up to the hardware makers to support in drivers, not microsoft :)

True, much of the blame lies on nvidia/ATI, but it's also up to Microsoft to ride these guys and tell them "Hey, we are damn near finished with this thing. Get a working driver out there so people can test it before we release!"

Some of you guys act like as long as the driver is out the day of release that's acceptable, but we aren't supposed to be beta testing SLI support for the first time after beta is over.

[Denis W. Veteran]

I didn't have the privilege of a XP-capable computer back in 2001, so how were the drivers like right before October 25, 2001?

In respect to drivers, it's acceptable for my system configuration. The Vista ForceWare drivers are clearly unoptimized compared to XP, and Creative's drivers like to pop up a 'Busted App' message on first install (nice message, lmao). I also had minor problems figuring out how to get my Promise SATA controller to work, and my Canon scanner. Both the controller and scanner installed fine with XP drivers.

[jporter]

True, much of the blame lies on nvidia/ATI, but it's also up to Microsoft to ride these guys and tell them "Hey, we are damn near finished with this thing. Get a working driver out there so people can test it before we release!"

Some of you guys act like as long as the driver is out the day of release that's acceptable, but we aren't supposed to be beta testing SLI support for the first time after beta is over.

ye I agree very much with your point there but I think MS does tell them but somehow NVIDIA/ATI/Creative won't release a newer driver more often. For Creative, as some guy mentioned in a post above, MS change the whole sound system over and over I think they get a bit tired with rewriting stuff for every build :p

Oh well, let's wait for tomorrow :D

What I hope gets fixed is:

- Internet connection drops (Common problem on NForceX)

- cdrom.sys fixes so daemon-tools/clonedrive work again (without hacks)

- More compatibility for certain new GFX cards

- Opening recording devices (right mouseclick on speaker->Recording Devices) no more error

[xelencin]

I didn't have the privilege of a XP-capable computer back in 2001, so how were the drivers like right before October 25, 2001?

For Creative they were non-existant, even for months after XP was released. I'm happy to see Creative releasing beta drivers this time around.

[Stebet]

Vista has changed the sound system over and over again on Creative, to the point now where it is RADICALLY different than what it is in XP. Drivers have to be totally redesigned, and made to work with a product that was reverse engineered to work with XP Drivers and privelages thereof.

Where did you get this bull**** from. MS hasn't changed the sound system "over and over". They made a new sound stack and that's it. Sure maybe the API has had some minor changes since the sound stack was introduced but the new stack has been well documented for a long time now (just read Larry "MS's audio guru" Ostermans blog). After the API and stack was finalized they have made bug fixes and little else. Nothing get's rewritten multiple times over the course of a program as big as Windows Vista.

It's true, since the sound stack is entirely new, that Creative might be cut a little slack but hell, most of the Video Driver was changed as well and you don't seem Nvidia and Ati slackin as much. At least their drivers aren't timebombed and only 50% functional (if you get them to function at all) like Creative's.

Edit: Quoted the wrong person at first.

[M118LR]

Interesting line on the RC2 download page. Goes with what is being said about 5744 being RC2 in name only.

"Please note: This build may not have the same level of support or servicing via Windows Update as RC1"

If it were a true RC2 build, would it say that?

[dagamer34]

People seem to think that once you have an RTM build, drivers are suddenly going to work. This is what that period in between October and January are for, to actually design and develop drivers for the OS.

[Xab]

Interesting line on the RC2 download page. Goes with what is being said about 5744 being RC2 in name only.

"Please note: This build may not have the same level of support or servicing via Windows Update as RC1"

If it were a true RC2 build, would it say that?

Well "supposedly", from everything that was said before, Microsoft was supposed to support RC1 with lots of patches, updates, fixes, through Windows Update for some time to come. However, I have yet to see this. There haven't really been any major fixes/updates to RC1, except for 5728 :p

[WelshBluebird]

Interesting line on the RC2 download page. Goes with what is being said about 5744 being RC2 in name only.

"Please note: This build may not have the same level of support or servicing via Windows Update as RC1"

If it were a true RC2 build, would it say that?

I think thats just there as a precaution from MS's part. RC1 was a full public beta, with a lot of people downloading it (a lot of those, probably shouldn't be messing with beta OS's). So they have to provide a fair amount of support. But with this RC2, its only gonna be available to a limited amount of the public, so its less chance of the idiots getting it.

Also, I think all the interim builds made available to the public have said that.

[jb23fan]

Where did you get this bull**** from. MS hasn't changed the sound system "over and over". They made a new sound stack and that's it. Sure maybe the API has had some minor changes since the sound stack was introduced but the new stack has been well documented for a long time now (just read Larry "MS's audio guru" Ostermans blog). After the API and stack was finalized they have made bug fixes and little else. Nothing get's rewritten multiple times over the course of a program as big as Windows Vista.

It's true, since the sound stack is entirely new, that Creative might be cut a little slack but hell, most of the Video Driver was changed as well and you don't seem Nvidia and Ati slackin as much. At least their drivers aren't timebombed and only 50% functional (if you get them to function at all) like Creative's.

Edit: Quoted the wrong person at first.

ROFL i like how you say "Where did you get this BS" and then you pretty much state my point for me, Thanks!

[freak_power]

The complete new Audio stack is bull**** and useless. Having 7.1 sorrundsound system with the hard volume control...any type of windows audio control is useless...

[metallithrax]

Why would anyone buy this knowing there are 500 bugs still present (if that is the case)? Would the same people buy a TV knowing that it may shut off at any minute? Or a video/DVD recorder that didn't always record the full program.

I know all software has bugs, but 500 known bugs at release is a bit much.

[windows95isg8]

I only got RC1 disks in the post today, and RC2 is out tomoz lol. Ill just download it off there site again. Cant be arsed to wait like 3/4 weeks for the disks.

[boogerjones]

Why would anyone buy this knowing there are 500 bugs still present (if that is the case)? Would the same people buy a TV knowing that it may shut off at any minute? Or a video/DVD recorder that didn't always record the full program.

I know all software has bugs, but 500 known bugs at release is a bit much.

500 is a target number (which I agree is a little scary), so we don't know what the actual number of known bugs will be at release. And how many known bugs do you think XP had at RTM? I think that if XP has taught us anything, it's that we should be worried about the unknown number of bugs/security holes that might be found in Vista post-RTM.

[Cold Blood]

there will be a lot more than 500 bugs,those are just reported but don't forget there may be more than 1000 undiscovered

[winlonghorn]

Why would anyone buy this knowing there are 500 bugs still present (if that is the case)? Would the same people buy a TV knowing that it may shut off at any minute? Or a video/DVD recorder that didn't always record the full program.

I know all software has bugs, but 500 known bugs at release is a bit much.

Actually, for an operating system, 500 bugs is very few. Do you realize how long Vista would be in testing if they had to iron out every last bug. That is almost impossible, I know because I am a software developer. You can't expect to get all of the bugs out and still get the product out before 2008 or 2009. Honestly, we would be waiting that long in this case if they had to work out every bug. It is not feasable from a business standpoint as long as the bugs are not serious. :)

[Stebet]

ROFL i like how you say "Where did you get this BS" and then you pretty much state my point for me, Thanks!

How exactly did i state your point? Minor API changes and bugfixes are not considered "changing the audio stack over and over" like you said. It's been changed exactly once. And i dear say that Creative has had access to the new audio driver API's/requirements for over a year now. After that, if Creative can't keep up with minor API changes and bugfixes, they should simply stop making Windows hardware.

Although it seems pretty obvious to me that they simply didn't give a **** and didn't start creating these drivers until pretty recently. The state of the Creative drivers is horrendous compared to pretty much all other drivers especially considering the marketshare they have. Creative simply dropped the ball on this one big-time and the blame is definitely not Microsoft's. Hell, they can't even release proper drivers for XP either.

[y_notm]

Why would anyone buy this knowing there are 500 bugs still present (if that is the case)? Would the same people buy a TV knowing that it may shut off at any minute? Or a video/DVD recorder that didn't always record the full program.

I know all software has bugs, but 500 known bugs at release is a bit much.

They aren't showstoppers, they're the 500 most obscure bugs found (as in problems in localization, etc), not something thats going to bring down your system. I'm sure Windows XP, Server 2003, and 2000 all had a similar target - you have to ship the software eventually. If you didn't set a realistic goal (see Longhorn project pre-2004) you'll never get there.

And if you look at it this way - there's about 50,000,000 lines of code in Vista. On average, thats a bug every 100,000 lines of code. Pretty good I'd say. A hell of a lot better average than most software out there.

[Jazket]

Well "supposedly", from everything that was said before, Microsoft was supposed to support RC1 with lots of patches, updates, fixes, through Windows Update for some time to come. However, I have yet to see this. There haven't really been any major fixes/updates to RC1, except for 5728 :p

[Randolph]

RC2 = tomorrow! Can't wait! :)

*prepares a new partition* :pirate: :clock:

[funkyblue]

Well, it's 8:25am on Friday here in South Australia..I want my RC2 lol...

[Scary674]

no we have 01:05 am here in germany at friday... cant wait for rc2

[rtk]

Uh, when we are less than one month away from RTM, I expect things to be pretty well finished. Are they supposed to wait until the first day of RTM to release a proper driver, so we can all be the testers on a final product, instead of during beta when such things are supposed to be tested?

If you ask the hardware people, they expect you to do exactly that. Why should they be required to hit a moving target, just so you can play with it unofficially. This is a beta of an OS, if you want to be a beta hardware tester, once again I'd suggest you go bug the vendor. "real" testers know the difference between hardware driver issues and OS bugs, and if there's a problem with one driver, they go to a known working one and continue development of the OS.

IOW, stick with VERY common hardware for pre-release OS testing.

If we were in early beta and there were no drivers, it would be somewhat more acceptable. A month from final product? Drivers should be top notch and in tons of peoples hands testing them for the final release.

The common one's are, the less common and rare hardware should get less attention, and does. If your hardware is new enough and common enough, you can bet there'll be decent drivers already in the works. Once again, the blame isn't Microsoft's. I encourage you to contact your hardware vendors and question them yourself, then feel free to post whatever you get back for a response.

True, much of the blame lies on nvidia/ATI, but it's also up to Microsoft to ride these guys and tell them "Hey, we are damn near finished with this thing. Get a working driver out there so people can test it before we release!"

ALL of the blame lies with the hardware vendor. If everyone here can get a decently current copy, so can they. It's not up to Microsoft to ride the vendors, it's your job! Vote with your feet and your wallet, or go pro-active and kick up a fuss, but not here!

[1Frothy]

For all those: Ooh it's friday here, gimmea my aRRSee 2

Click