Microsoft looks to 'Mojave' to revive Vista's image

[Beastage]

Of course. There's an old adage that a person is smart, people are stupid. The consensus on any issue in a population is heavily influenced by what the cool/important people say. The cool/important people say Vista sucks, therefore, the populous believes. Obviously there will be sectors of that population who don't conform (you know, those people who use Vista daily and don't hate it, or the few who have a genuinely poor experience for whatever reason), but the vast majority are basing there opinion of something without having ever used that something (as clearly shown in these supposed videos).

QFT and sad but true.

Like I personally exprienced dozes of times with many people, vista is just better after you use it.

I know many people that were afraid of vista, got it with their new pcs or laptops, didnt understand it at first, switched back to XP and after a few days realized how better vista is.

[ViperAFK]

And what's more, is the idiots claiming that SP1 solved all sorts of problems. They have no idea what they're talking about, obviously. SP1 contained NOTHING new in the way of bug fixes, as it was simply a roll-up of all the fixes to that point. SP1 was essentially marketing, nothing more.

source?

Only a couple of the fixes from SP1 were released separately AFAIK...

benchmark tests on a brand new top of the line system is different from varying setups and whats now considered legacy hardware and individual experience. i myself experience 75% loss of performance in most games compared to xp which plays them fine under vista my system struggles to get a steady smooth framerate which obviously says enough for my experience and others i know who don't have core 2 duo or quad new systems who can play games fine on xp but under vista just turns games to power point presentations and not everyone has or is able to upgrade and have systems capable of running games under xp which is what they want and need and they bag microsoft cause you get molasses quality gaming under vista. i'm not talk really old systems i'm talking last 2-3 year old and were top of line back then.

On my 5 year old dell with 2 gigs of ram and a 7600GS I had like only like a 3-10 fps loss and that was with the early crap nvidia drivers. There is definitely something wrong there. The system in that benchmark is new but it is only a mid range system... Not close to top of the line.

[Punio4]

That's just as silly as half the mac vs. pc ads though.

Exactly. Beat them at their own game :p

[djDaemon]

source?

Only a couple of the fixes from SP1 were released separately AFAIK...

Q: What features are included in Vista SP1?

A: The following end-user features are included in Windows Vista Service Pack 1:

1. A collection of previously-released and new security fixes, bug fixes, and other minor updates.

2. An update to the Windows kernel to bring the Vista kernel (version 6.0) up to date with the version in Windows Server 2008 (version 6.1).

3. A change to the Kernel Patch Protection ("PatchGuard") feature in the Vista kernel that prevents security companies like McAfee and Symantec from integrating as tightly with the OS as they could in previous Windows versions. This will include a set of APIs aimed at helping developers write code that interacts with this security feature.

4. A change to Vista's Instant Search feature that will allow third party desktop search product makers to more closely integrate their products with Windows Vista. In the initial shipping version of Vista, the Instant Search indexer still runs at full speed even if a third party product is installed, reducing overall system performance.

5. A change to Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) that will remove the Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) and Non-Genuine State (NGS) mode for Vista installs in expired non-activated and non-genuine states. See New WGA Behavior in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 for more information about this change.

And folks, that's about it. For a more complete rundown of SP1's features, please read my showcase, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Revealed.

Source

So, while there were a few of the newest bug fixes in SP1, it certainly was not what most believe it to be. Those claiming they know differently are spewing crap they read. Which, as should be evident by now, is largely inaccurate.

[Mikee99]

Strange. I had Vista on my PC but it just become so slow and sluggish that I had to switch back to XP to experience my first fastest responsive system I've ever seen since having ran Vista for 2 years. I can play games that under vista wouldn't even run. I tried Quake 4 in Vista and it wouldn't register as a high settings by default and ran at extremely low 640-800 and low quality settings, but after repeating the installation on XP, I am able to get extreme high and large resolution on Quake 4 without any framerate drops.

What GPU do you have? Also, what was the latest driver version you were using?

Many people with nice GPU's had the same problem when Vista came out because of terrible drivers. Those issues have been ironed out since then.

[toadeater]

So they got to play with a hand-picked, pre-installed copy of Vista maintained by MS's own engineers. I wonder what their opinion would have been if they had to deal with it in the real world? Actually, I don't wonder, I know what it would have been. It would have been the same as everyone else has had in the real world when dealing with Vista's numerous shortcomings.

I'm glad Vista's improving, but it's not there yet, and I don't think it will be before Windows 7 ships. Vista's amounted to a beta test for Windows 7. It's a transitional OS. By late 2009, most of the problems should be gone, the drivers should be ok, and devs will understand Vista's quirks enough to avoid them.

Until then, I would still not recommend Vista to any inexperienced users, or to users of pro multimedia software. I don't even see the major selling points of Vista. Why bother? Until MS can answer that, Vista's going to continue to have lackluster sales.

[CoolCatBad]

Mojave has a website now and video of the experiment in a few days.

http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/

[zhangm Supervisor]

It looks like they beefed up the specs on their special super test rig. They maxed out their RAM, for instance.

WXGA (1280x800)

T2400 1.83 Ghz

1 GB RAM by default.

Intel 945GM

Intel GMA 950 (128 MB)

Shipped with XP Home, fall 2006. Yup, quite the powerhouse alright. :rolleyes:

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

So they got to play with a hand-picked, pre-installed copy of Vista maintained by MS's own engineers. I wonder what their opinion would have been if they had to deal with it in the real world? Actually, I don't wonder, I know what it would have been. It would have been the same as everyone else has had in the real world when dealing with Vista's numerous shortcomings.

...

Can somebody mention these shortcomings, I've been running Vista for months (I'm fairly sure I'm not an MS engineer) and I haven't had a single issue.

[CoolCatBad]

People are having the same conflicts they always had with any given operating system, but now they have heard the sensationalist, tabloid horror stories about Vista they immediately shreik that the entire OS is defective upon encountering the slightest glitch.

[Digitalx]

You are definitely having an odd situation there. Gaming performance should be very much on par. What type of card do you have, and how old are the drivers for it?

I have X850 XT ViVO running catalyst 8.5. I've had enough of the bad performance though and have new parts on way including HD3870 so should be able to revise then and prove my point that vista just isn't for legacy hardware.

[feerlessleadr430]

I have X850 XT ViVO running catalyst 8.5. I've had enough of the bad performance though and have new parts on way including HD3870 so should be able to revise then and prove my point that vista just isn't for legacy hardware.

Thats strange...I have an X800 XL and don't have any problems playing different games on my screen or even running a dual monitor setup at max resolution (1920x1200 on one and 1680x1050).

if you are talking about pure gaming at its highest settings I cannot attest to that, but as a very casual gamer and a power user I can watch 2 different SD movies at the same time or 1 HD movie with no problems in vista

[toadeater]

People are having the same conflicts they always had with any given operating system, but now they have heard the sensationalist, tabloid horror stories about Vista they immediately shreik that the entire OS is defective upon encountering the slightest glitch.

If MS thinks that Vista isn't selling because of bad publicity, then what explains all the downgrades to XP from people who HAVE used Vista and didn't like it? What explains all the IT departments that tested Vista and decided to skip it for Windows 7? Intel skipped Vista, you don't think they're a bunch of noobs, do you?

[anonymous_user]

What percentage of all Vista users went back to XP? I believe that number would be important in deciding how "bad" Vista is.

As for businesses like Intel or GM, it can be expensive to upgrade all their computers to Vista.

[1759]

What percentage of all Vista users went back to XP? I believe that number would be important in deciding how "bad" Vista is.

As for businesses like Intel or GM, it can be expensive to upgrade all their computers to Vista.

Why would they need to upgrade? Vista offers some security enhancements for businesses, but the rest is really consumer-centric. Businesses care more about stability and uptime, then would about most new features, even if it made the PC twice as fast, they would still have to test with their in-house and other software packages before rolling it out, and that might take months.

And yeah not to mention, it would be very expensive for new licenses and RAM upgrades.

[revvo]

As for businesses like Intel or GM, it can be expensive to upgrade all their computers to Vista.

Indeed. Very expensive and time consuming. You might need to upgrade the hardware, then get licenses of volume license keys or whatever it is to install the dozens or hundreds of Vista copies. Before you do all of that, you already made sure that every software needed by the employees works properly, so you did those tests in a testing environment with the computers and system that employees will be upgraded to. Once you've upgraded all the computers, it will take some time, but it shouldn't be that much to let the employees figure the little changes of the interface.

What gain has the company made to upgrade the computers to Vista? I mean, many computers today still run Windows 2000 because it works perfectly fine. If there is no benefit to the company's goals, it's not worth it.

[feerlessleadr430]

If i were to make an educated guess on to why many (certainly not all) but many people who use vista on a new PC downgrade to XP because of all the crapware that comes preinstalled on the computer from the manufacturer.

My girlfriend's mom bought a vista laptop from sony and it could barely turn on and definitely was slow as hell.

Needless to say, her mom was not happy at all and wanted to go back to XP. I told her to give me 1 hour and her PC would be faster than before. I reinstalled Vista and did not install any of the other crap that came preinstalled and guess what....Vista ran much faster than XP ever did on her old machine.

The manufacturers are (in my humble opinion) now responsible for alot of the bad experiences that the average person is having with vista with all of the crapware that they install on your machine before the end user even gets his or her hands on it.

[zerologic]

Does anyone know how to pronounce Mojave?

I heard Paul Thurrott pronounce it as Mo-havee in his latest podcast.

[Linkinfamous]

Does anyone know how to pronounce Mojave?

I heard Paul Thurrott pronounce it as Mo-havee in his latest podcast.

/moʊˈhɑːvi/ or /məˈhɑːvi/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Desert

[Dev Null Zen]

Does anyone know how to pronounce Mojave?

I heard Paul Thurrott pronounce it as Mo-havee in his latest podcast.

Thats the pronunciation when it comes to the desert, so I'd venture a guess he had it right on.

[jesseinsf]

True. Many of the features of Vista can easily be added to XP as well. I can make XP look and act exactly like Vista. Vista was not the big change that XP was from the 9.x line. At this point I don't really care if Vista is finally working as it should have from the start. Its far too late even though at first I had actually wanted to like Vista.

Remember that XP does not use the second GPU core that Vista uses for gaming, Video and Aero. It was not built to detect a second GPU core.

[zerologic]

whoa! i always read that guys blog and visit the site (winsupersite). usually daily. but i've never heard one of his podcasts. im gonna listen now :p

It's an excellent podcast (Y) only thing is at the moment the site seems to be down. Keep trying. :happy:

[wellofsouls]

How long did they get to try out this OS and also what sort of equipment was it on? This sounds just like a canned news event given by the military.

well, it's apparently some sorts of an ad campaign in disguise, not really some scientific study. But then it's a fun and clever ad campaign. Finally Microsoft learns to do something that's actually clever and cool in their marketing efforts ;)

[chrispinto]

A quite legendary way to market, albeit perhaps a bit too late as others have suggested

BUT, after 3 years of using Vista, i've yet to experience issues :)

If i were to make an educated guess on to why many (certainly not all) but many people who use vista on a new PC downgrade to XP because of all the crapware that comes preinstalled on the computer from the manufacturer.

My girlfriend's mom bought a vista laptop from sony and it could barely turn on and definitely was slow as hell.

Needless to say, her mom was not happy at all and wanted to go back to XP. I told her to give me 1 hour and her PC would be faster than before. I reinstalled Vista and did not install any of the other crap that came preinstalled and guess what....Vista ran much faster than XP ever did on her old machine.

The manufacturers are (in my humble opinion) now responsible for alot of the bad experiences that the average person is having with vista with all of the crapware that they install on your machine before the end user even gets his or her hands on it.

Woah, someone with common sense!

Spot on the money there, Fearless!

[CoolCatBad]

Video is up http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/