Is Vista the New OS/2?

An anonymous reader asks: "Well after the long torturous wait, Vista is finally out. Is it just me or do others see similarities between Vista and the OS/2 launch back in the '80's? I mean you need new hardware to run the new OS (Just like OS/2). Even on the best '386 system OS/2 still ran like a dog. Older apps sometimes didn't work (DOS penalty box). And most important, what was the compelling reason to upgrade? Add to this an interview I saw with Ballmer, some time ago, where he was talking about how he knew OS/2 was doomed when IBM kept talking about OS/2's KLOC's (thousands of lines of code), and how bloated OS/2 was. Now I see an interview with him where he talks about how great Vista is due to the, yes you guessed it, the KLOC's of code in it. So is Vista going to see the same fate as OS/2?" This is kind of a hard sell seeing that Vista has Microsoft's might behind it, rather than against it. Still, how long do you think it would take a good percentage of computer users (say 80+%) to migrate to Microsoft's latest and greatest OS?

I've tried it...

[pfraser]

As a Technet subscriber I've had access to Vista for a while now. I've loaded it onto my PC, I've tried it out, and I personally won't be switching. Microsoft's stubborn belief that they know how I want to use my computer - not the other way around - has meant that I'll now sit down and spend the time to get an installation of an alternative OS working. Hopefully that means I won't have to use it at all, right?

Wrong.

Unfortunately however (and I'm sure many of you have already witnessed this) I work in a rather large org (Government, in fact) which is dominated by those who say "new is better", and are already putting into action plans to upgrade our fleets of PCs to Vista.

No matter what comparisons people make to OS' of past, Vista is here to stay. Why? Because it's a Microsoft product. And 'The Big People' want Microsoft products, whatever it means.

Maybe that'll change in five or ten years, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

I have not tried it

[pogson]

I have no need to try Vista. I switched to GNU/Linux years ago and it just works. This year, I designed and installed a new computer system in a new school. After the dust settled, it is working trouble free. In the logs I get to see all the viruses detected at the firewall on the way to a few legacy Windows machines. As long as Windows architecture exists, it will always be prone to ownership by malware. Combine that with Treacherous Computing and you have less reliability.

I have discussed computing with several organizations that stick to "Wintel" and it is so sad that they believe there is any benefit or need to avoid the competitive market place. I switched 500 users to Linux with a brief intro and a few follow-up consultations. The cost to switch was much less than the cost of obtaining Windows. In fact, we have twice as many clients as the tiny budget I inherited would allow with Windows, considering server licences and per-seat licences. Our maintenance costs are astronomically lower as we use thin clients on LTSP. Future upgrades will be cheaper, too as the thin clients will last longer and only the terminal servers need upgrading.

I suspect many will avoid Vista in business but eventually, those who do not convert to GNU/Linux will be pressured by XP/2000 end-of-support. Unfortunately, consumers will likely soon only be able to buy machines with Vista aboard unless they are smart enough to seek out systems without an OS or with Linux installed. There are more of these all the times as Linux has entered the mainstream, but for a few years more, it will take a special effort to avoid Windows and the common user will not make that effort unless given a push. Fortunately, year after year, I have found more people have heard of Linux or seen it and are willing to consider it.

I am most familiar with schools. Some have converted to Linux out of desperation to try and wrestle IT to the ground with a limited budget. Others have converted because a few visionaries identified Linux as a good thing and led the way. Schools can easily avoid lock-in because the bulk of users are students and teachers who use the web and office suites to gather and process information. OpenOffice just works with browsers and clipboards to do most tasks. Linux is superb for computer science/information processing. It is a small number of graying IT managers and administrators who are holding back adoption of Linux in schools. The taxpayers have to be more assertive in demanding FLOSS in schools. The taxpayers should demand that Windows be kicked out of schools just as they would demand drug dealers be kicked off school grounds. Most curricula have not specified Windows and many curricula suggest more use of IT in classrooms, so there is continuing pressure on budgets. My school has a cluster of terminals in every classroom. Schools with Windows rarely can afford that.

Lines of code

[eric76]

I remember reading an article in about 1992 or so in which Bill Gates compared measuring programming productivity to measuring progress in building aircraft by how much weight was added to the aircraft.

Re:I've tried it...

[syusuf]

> No matter what comparisons people make to OS' of past, Vista is here to stay.
> Why? Because it's a Microsoft product.
> And 'The Big People' want Microsoft products, whatever it means.

Sort of reminiscent of the "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" line, isn't it?

OS/2 was never the gaming platform of the future

[eddy]

'Nuff said.

OSX?

[Nova77]

Apparently there is no real alternative to Vista on PCs, and this is why it is likely that it will become a success. But I can't stop wondering what it would happen if Apple makes its OS available to any intel machine. This is probably a good moment for them..

Re:Not many similarities at all

[Vengeance]

The vast majority of what you've presented aren't O/S issues, they are UI issues.

And that's one of the biggest problems with Windows. There is woefully insufficient distinction between the two.

Re:No

[argStyopa]

I'm not going to disagree with your conclusion, but it's interesting that in your entire list, there's absolutely nothing there that's convincing in any real way.

"1. Vista runs extremely well on any modern PC. You may need a video card to get a composite desktop, but I bet people who don't know enough to get a real video card won't care anyway."
Well, that depends on how you define 'modern', doesn't it? I mean, most people would consider PCs bought within the last couple of years 'modern', yet a recent (Infoweek?) survey showed that something like 60-80% of business computers would have to be upgraded or replaced to run Vista. I'm not even CONSIDERING eye-candy like the composite desktop - I'm talking the OS+services running typical tasks. And this also doesn't consider the whole realm of business and home software that would require upgrades to run on Vista due to its abandonment of Win95/98 routine support.

"2. Vista may not be revolutionary, but it's a clear improvement over XP. It's better looking, more polished and overall a much nicer experience."
Really, how? I haven't met a person yet that can tell me of a single thing it does that XP doesn't already do - that is, aside from implement an overwhelmingly restrictive DRM regime.

"3. Almost nobody is going to "buy" Vista. Very few people "bought" XP either. It just makes more sense to get it preloaded."
I get it, because MS's restrictive licenses to OEMs mean that users don't get the choice....ergo it's better? Huh?

"4. The drivers and other compatibility issues will be ironed out quickly."
R-i-g-h-t. Because XP doesn't have any patches anymore. All those issues were ironed out quickly, too.

Is Vista the New OS/2?

[NullProg]

Why are we comparing Rotten eggs to Oranges?

1) IBM Licensed OS/2 to other vendors (NCR, Compaq, Microsoft, etc). Does Microsoft?
2) When you purchased OS/2, you owned it. Microsoft wants to police your installation.
3) OS/2 has a Object Oriented desktop called Workplace Shell. Windows inherits the brain-dead Progman.exe
4) OS/2 still works on anything from a brand new system down to a P100. Bonus, you don't have to call IBM for permission to install it.
5) OS/2 Warp 4 had suspend to disk and speech recognition 10 years ago.
6) IBM uses cool Star Trek names for product descriptions. Microsoft uses a marketing department full of interior designers for its product names.

There are hundreds of other little things that OS/2 Warp still does better than Windows. Only with Windows 2000 did Microsoft finally release something better than OS/2 Warp. Everything released by Microsoft since then has been step backwards in ease of use and freedom.

Enjoy,

Re:No

[jZnat]

And yes, people will be buying it. Halo addicts who want to play the next version are forced to go with this OS because the next Direct X just won't work on any other OS. *cough*bullshit*cough*

And ironically, Halo 2 Vista will use DirectX 9, so it's obvious that Bungie is being forced by Microsoft Games (publisher) to release for Vista only. Of course, I wouldn't expect it to be very long for a crack that allows it to be run on XP or any other OS with DirectX 9.

Re:Not many similarities at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same experience when I upgraded to Vista. I installed Vista Business Edition on a second HDD after a bad experience with the Beta. I expected I would tool around it for a while, then pop back into XP. I was completely wrong- it's an excellent operating system, and runs beautifully. It's got subtle visual effects that are far better than Mac OS X's, and a degree of comfort, customizability, and functionality that I'd never had in Mac or Linux.

People who compare this to KDE are simply lying to themselves. Let me point out a major difference-

IT'S FINISHED.

KDE is a disjointed eternal WIP. GNOME is so behind the curve on usability that the experience of running it is always like time traveling to 2 years ago. And those of you running weird desktops like fluxbox, etc. -you have too much time on your hands, and your opinions should be considered invalid when compared to the vast majority of end users. I know some people can use an abacus faster than they could ever punch things into a calculator, but let's not kid ourselves...

What's with the luddite-attitude of '2-3 hours of specialized tweaking will recreate those UI features on any OS or XP, etc..'- have you ever spoken to a non-IT/technical end user before?

I'm running Windows Vista with an Athlon XP 1700+, Nforce2 mobo, 512 mb of DDR-266, and a GeForce 6200 AGP w/ 128 mb RAM. It's running on an old 20 gb HDD. Even with Aero running, the UI runs the same speed as it does in XP SP2, and is actually faster than Gnome or KDE on this box.

What's with the attacks on the OS? You guys act like Linux is a desktop operating system. You might fool somebody- it's a mutated server system. What's next?- are we going to talk about how much better Open Office is than Office 2007? It's like a clunky version of Office 2000.

Lordy. you guys are out of touch.

Re:Completely different

[The OPTiCIAN]

> OS/2 died because no one high enough up the corporate command
> structure lived or died by OS/2's success.

Exactly.

Further, for all the ridiculousness of the new vista interface, at least it's being done with the intention of impressing users. OS/2 never felt like it was being done with the users in mind. Maybe their bosses - but not the users themselves. There were annoying user interface issues with version 2 that still hadn't been fixed by version 4. New releases could come out supposedly with neat changes and those changes would be all these weird backend things that dovetailed nicely with existing IBM technology but which had absolutely no relevance to the enduser. Meanwhile you try to line up your icons and it still doesn't work nicely. Netscape had a memory leak that happened when a page changed and you had a dropdown open that would bring down the system. Didn't get fixed for years. Their advice on what to do for some DOS-origin games was "disable the sound". Gee, thanks. They didn't put particular effort into drivers.

I was completely into the OS/2 thing from 2.0 until 4.0 and by the end of the experience felt far more venom towards IBM than Microsoft. OS/2 lost because IBM couldn't tell its arse from itss elbow when it came to providing a reasonable user experience.