Very detailed anti-Microsoft rant...

[Siv]

Just found this page on the web and I thought I share it with you guys.

(Attention, very long read...)

[VaKo]

90% of the problems Microsoft haters have come down to them not actually being that skilled with Microsoft Products. There is a reason Microsoft has most of the worlds computers running its OS, and a reason its pirated when decent free offerings are just as good for the average user. Yes, there are problems but its not like linux or OSX are without there own selection of problems. And in all honesty, you want to work in IT? You need to learn windows. The punchline is to be familiar with them all.

[digip]

Use what you like, FTW! I use Windows and *nix, don't care for MAC's though, mainly on principle, but thats just my opinion. MAC's have a purpose and are good at certain things, I can just do most if not all of them in windows or linux. People hate OS's for whatever reason, but when it comes down to it, you use what you have to in order to get the job done, regardless of brand name or manufactuer. I personally love my windows XP, not too fond of Vista, although it has its good and bad points, prefer 2003 over vista, but will probably upgrade to 7 when it coems out, but only after I get a new machine. I want a 64bit OS, 8gig of ram( or more )mobo with an ATI 4870, and Quad Core Phenom II, then I will probably be happy for a few more years. I'm running a Phenom Quad now, and it serves its purpose just fine, but I am maxed out at 4gig of ram. The intel i7 is fast and all, but I don't need to spend that kind of money for my needs nor do I care for intel products to begin with.

PS - This thread is pretty pointless, as there are a bunch on here already like it. Flame on!

[xdmag]

A friend of mine once said that Microsoft has only 3 really good products:

1. Exchange Server

2. Excel

3. Windows XP

[Zimmer]

The writer has some good points. Also the best windows ever was Windows 2000.

[VaKo]

Windows 7 is bloody good.

[Zimmer]

Vako you say widnows 7 is good. Well I want to see the reqs. when it is released and sold. I also want to see if it is stable (As stable as Linux would be nice... Oh who am I kidding that's a pipe dream). Then I want to see how many editions and cost (I hear the version they are selling as "Ultimate" is 5000$ ;)). Lets hope its one and its the ultimate version and 129$ (the other two OS are that or less. Apple 129$ and Linux is FREE!). So I'll decide then

[VaKo]

1: The hardware requirements are less than Vista, it works fine on kit which choked Vista and flys on kit that runs Vista OK. On high end kit its much faster than Vista. Uses less memory too, but that's a non-issue given that the price of RAM went through the floor recently (the 8GB I have in my main machine cost less than 100£ including shipping and tax). It runs on Atom powered netbooks without issue. Massive improvement over Vista all in all.

2: Vista is very stable, the only BSOD's I've had on it were due to janky Nvidia drivers. Windows 7 Beta is also very stable, I've been running it on my work machines for awhile now and despite being a beta it has never crapped out on me. True, applications that search for the OS version and only accept one answer won't work but everything else does.

3: Anyone paying sticker price for a MS product reading this forum needs to return their geek credentials and join the ranks of the regular users. A Technet subscription will give you a large chunk of every product Microsoft makes for less than a boxed edition of Vista Ultimate. If you buy a machine with Vista pre-installed after a certain date this summer, you get Windows 7 for free.

4: The only editions people in developed nations will see will be Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. Basic and Starter are for emerging markets and OEM use only and you will probably never see them. Same with Enterprise which is only for volume licensing users. Home Premium will be more than enough for 90% of users, with Professional and Enterprise adding stuff which is only going to be useful in domain environments such as Mobility Center, Presentation Modes, Remote Desktop Clients, Branch Cache and off-line folders. I'll give you the ultimate comment though, its kinda pointless it would seem. The versions are tiered as well, so if you buy version x and want features from y or z you just buy the relevant version and upgrade in place.

5: If you like Apple or Linux stuff, then use it. But please actually give Windows 7 a try before slating it. It really is good, supports open document format, multi-touch, burns ISO's out the box, mounts VHD's out the box and in some cases can even boot a VM natively a la HyperV. Its faster than Vista and has better features. If you like XP, thats fine but time after time after time I've seen people who *hate* Vista actually sit down and spend some time with it, and they all seem to like it. I've even seen die-hard OSX fans sit down with Windows 7 and go "this is actually... good...".

6: My favourite OS is still FreeBSD, but Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 are some of the finest bits of software I've used.

[Zimmer]

a) I have given it a tried and I loved it but I also saw the terrible mess of Vista (well at least for a friend I was trying to help).

B) price was more of a "is Microsoft going to screw the average consumer or have the learned" (and if they learned their they have hopefully learned else were for windows 7). Apple was successful with leopard and they didn't sell it for 499 so why does microsoft. Linux was that compared to free 500 $ is insane not that they should give it away, but that they should sell it for a reasonable price not an arm and a leg

c) Apple was an example of what Microsoft IMO should have done one version.

d) I've had a lot of BSOD's and even just black and white text of this file can't be found so I have seen the flaky side of Windows (It has just shutdown before, almost like the plug was yanked it wasn't, when powered on from standby and I've been met with 1 BSOD and 1 Missing SYSTEM file.)

[nicatronTg]

I've attended trainings at a Microsoft Authorized Education Center, and I was told: "We are now going to install Windows on the servers. The installation will probably fail on one or two systems [They had ten identical systems in the classroom] but that always happens - we don't know why and neither does Microsoft." I repeat, this from a Microsoft Authorized Partner.

Strangely, I feel the same way about my windows installs. Here's a rough list of last year's installs(and early 09's), and weather they failed or not:

1. Windows XP - Said the partition was unreadable, deleted it. Failed later.

2. Windows XP - Finally worked, on a 20GB drive that would later get smashed to the ground.

3. Windows XP - Failed. Brand new burned copy from TechNet said it was damaged.

4. Windows XP - Worked!

5. Windows 7 - Nuked XP's bootloader & partitions. It took 4 tries/re-burns to install.

6. Windows XP - Thank god it installed correctly. Fuck you too windows 7 build 7000.

In all, I was only satisfied with 2 installations, the windows XP installs that worked.

[Machstorm]

I read through some of the articles and some of them I felt the author lacked knowledge about Windows. For the most part it looks like he tried to do research, but missed the mark. He could have used a better example than this.

Only 32 kilobytes of RAM in the Apollo capsules' computers was enough to put men on the moon and safely get them back to Earth. The Voyager deep space probes that sent us a wealth of images and scientific data from the outer reaches of the solar system (and still continue to do so from interstellar space) have on-board computers based on a 4-bit CPU. An 80C85 CPU with 176 kilobytes of ROM and 576 kilobytes of RAM was all that controlled the Sojourner robot that drove across the surface of Mars and delivered geological data data and high-resolution images in full-color stereo. But when I have an 800MHz Pentium III with 256 Megabytes of RAM and 40 Gigabytes of disk space, and I try to type a letter to my grandmother using Windows XP and Office XP, the job will take me forever because my computer is underpowered! And of course Windows Vista won't even run on such a machine...

He's talking about technology that's 30 years apart. If the Apollo capsules or Voyager had Windows installed he would have a point, but seeing as how Microsoft did not exist until 11 years after the fact so he has no point.

From experience when a client gets this angry about Windows; it's usually something they did and they are shifting the blame to Microsoft. The author makes himself look like he did half of his homework and just paraphrased works from magazine and tech articles.

Thankfully, the only time I had a problem with Windows XP is when I unistalled Norton GoBack which writes itself into the MBR and that is the only time (knock on wood) I have ever ran into with Windows XP and it was a Norton problem.

[h3%5kr3w]

Have not read the article yet, but I highly agree with Vako.

Truthfully, I love win7 but it has not loved me back yet (long stories, but it's still beta, can you bitch about a beta?)

Believe it or not Vista has been more stable on my system than any other O.S. to date besides Ubuntu... But that's my fault so.....

Right now I say Vista 4 the win, and I got $20 on 7 in the future. But at the same time, even if you don't joint technet, do yourself a favor and if your going to actually BUY windows, go to newegg and get a damn oem disk for ~125 to $150, instead of spending $1000000 for a standard copy.... You know by now how to install it, and even if you dont it's a no brainer.

[moonlit]

Being so long and detailed I can imagine the author probably has some sensible points to make but I haven't yet read it. To be honest though, the points he makes probably aren't really very relevant to the end user (I did see mention of what he claims was inadequate memory protection in early NT versions, for example) and I've seen so much meaningless bitching about Windows I'm pretty sick of the whole thing by this point.

I like to stay reasonably unbiased and neutral and yes, I'll admit that Windows has problems, but what doesn't? Nothing is a fix-all answer to anything else in the world of computers and all OSs have both good and bad points.

So I probably will read it at some point, but I will continue to use and recommend Windows for non-technical users because it's very well supported by many, many commercial entities and it does what it's supposed to do for a majority of users. Cost is not an issue either, because most machines come with some version of Windows off the shelf. If you can't keep Windows clean then you probably can't troubleshoot Linux either, and OSX doesn't count unless you own a Mac (OSX86 doesn't count, it's unsupported and isn't suitable for general users).

[dr0p]

Personally, I really like Windows. XP was simply epic, fast and quite flexible; I really can't find a downside to it. Vista had quite a few downsides but those were solved pretty quickly after Vista's release, and SP1 basically fixed any real bugs it had. Win7 looks very promising but I've yet to be able to use it myself so I can't really talk.

I have used a ton of flavors of linux, BSD, and I'm pretty familiar with OSX too even though I've never owned a Mac. They're all nice and have their strong points which is why they're deployed in different situations.

[shonen]

Agreed XP is epic, Microsoft hit the nail on the head once service pack 1 came out on windows XP Vista on the other hand I was not a huge fan off, its a resource hungry fat bitch. When I was using it previously it was buggy as. I have heard alot of the stuff has been ironed out since the release of SP1 for Vista but never the less I simply refuse to use it.

lol moral of the story don't use anything Microsoft related until the 1st installment of service packs hit the interwebs!

p.s: Yes Windows 7 looks promising and I would use it over Vista.

[VaKo]

SP1 Vista is fine, you just need decent kit. As for Windows 7, its basically Vista R2.

[shonen]

Yeah you are right about Windows 7, one of the boys was messing around with it in a VM in class today. I was like holy fuck all they did was photoshop a new logo and prepackage Vista. =P

[Esqulax]

Im quite impressed... i thought this thread would have degenerated into an OS war :P

At the moment, im running XP on my main machine, Leopard on the macbookpro and BT3/Ubuntu on the netbook.

Same as moonlit, i like to stay unbiased.

I've not really had any troubles with any of them to be honest, just the usual BSOD's on XP when messing about with drivers n stuff.. nothing that wasnt MY fault.

I ent had a go on Windows 7 as of yet, but im sure i will at some point!

[lnxr0x]

I haven't had a chance to try Win 7 yet... XP was GREAT... it's still good but as of late there are soooo many instances where people are getting antivirus2009/antispyware2009/windowsantivirus (all malware) on their machines. Prob due to careless users but none the less on the rise :( If you can't tell by my handle.. I'm a Linux geek and use various distros @ home, Work requires me to use XP.

I don't care for Vista ... too many quirks. Before SP1 I had more issues with wireless than anything else. Plus other minor annoyances.

I don't have an issue with Microsoft products, I just don't always agree with their "corporate" ideals... but that's just my open source values. :) You have to use what works for YOU or your NEEDS.

I would NEVER tell an average end user that has been using XP for years to switch to Ubuntu without valid cause. On the other hand I've come across individuals who are just so fed up with malware issues and no matter how much you "educate" them on safe computing they just don't get it. ( not their fault... they just don't have an ounce of technolust :P )

If someone said "I'm so sick of our PC, I've had to re-install XP 3 times in the past year and no matter what my kids get on there and load up all kinds of programs (limewire, any "FREE" games they can download in 3 sec, etc.) that just end up slowing everything down (malware infections), all I want to do is check my email and browse the web !!" I would (and have) casually throw out the idea of Linux, explain the benefits and weaknesses and give them a Live distro to try. I've found by taking this approach about 30-50% of people will actually stick with open source, and LOVE it.

My 2 cents..