# Vista or XP



## Christie Photo (Jul 31, 2008)

Well...  I'm finally ready to add a computer.  Although I'm a Mac fan, I'm sticking with Windows since everything else is in place.

I can still buy a computer with XP Pro.  It's what I know.

Is it time to jump to Vista?  I'll be running CS2.  Nothing else.

Any insight is appreciated.

Thanks.
-Pete


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## tasman (Jul 31, 2008)

Stick with XP Pro. I have another computer with Vista and it gives me problems with some software and some other things. XP gives me no issues.


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## iflynething (Aug 1, 2008)

Agreed with the programming issues and new software. It's weird how it administrates stuff and asks you every freaking damn time, would you like to continue. It seems as though this or that is trying to harm your computer, would you like to keep going. It took me about a month and a half to get completely used to how Vista runs

~Michael~


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## nynfortoo (Aug 1, 2008)

iflynething said:


> Agreed with the programming issues and new software. It's weird how it administrates stuff and asks you every freaking damn time, would you like to continue. It seems as though this or that is trying to harm your computer, would you like to keep going. It took me about a month and a half to get completely used to how Vista runs
> 
> ~Michael~




You can disable that if it's too much of a bother.

Vista is ace compared to XP, in my experience. I've been using it for about 18 months now, and my computer is still nice and zippy without any care to keep it clean or organised; Vista's automatic defragmentation is excellent.

I always managed to bog XP down, regardless of how much effort I made in keeping it clean.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but I hate going back to XP now. I use it at work, and it's rubbish*

*opinion, once again.


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## Overread (Aug 1, 2008)

If all your doing is photo editing and websurfing then there is not need to move to vista - the real (and about only) reason is for gaming where only vista supports DirectX10 - (and not those vista only games, they were cracked in about a week )

Oh and as for that program that askes for your permision everytime you run something - here is how to turn it off:
Go to your user control panel (the place where you set your password and little computer ava) - that is start:top right click on the little image.
Once in the new window open up the bottom option on the list - called "Turn user account control on/off" Once on the new page untick (click once) on the box and save settings.

And there you go - all you will get now is a little warning box in the bottom right of your computer when you first turn it on - telling you that it is off. Than this warning vanishes in moment anyway and then won't bother you at all. Its not even a good security feature as any hacker just has to name their virus "Windows critical update" or something like that and 99% of people will click ok


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## Christie Photo (Aug 1, 2008)

Overread said:


> If all your doing is photo editing and websurfing...



No....  no surfing.  STRICTLY photo editing.  I don't intend to add it to the network.

It's starting to look like Vista would be the way to go.

Thanks to all for the input thus far!

-Pete


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## DragonMoon (Aug 1, 2008)

nynfortoo said:


> You can disable that if it's too much of a bother.
> 
> Vista is ace compared to XP, in my experience. I've been using it for about 18 months now, and my computer is still nice and zippy without any care to keep it clean or organised; Vista's automatic defragmentation is excellent.
> 
> ...


 
I agree with the above...though I don't have any problems with XP (I use it at work as well).


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## usayit (Aug 1, 2008)

I'm going to vote XP... mostly from my experience of dealing with customer machines running Vista.

At home.. no Windows boxes there.


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## Overread (Aug 1, 2008)

Christie Photo said:


> No.... no surfing. STRICTLY photo editing. I don't intend to add it to the network.
> 
> It's starting to look like Vista would be the way to go.
> 
> ...


 

Why?
Vista is openly admited to working on a higher system drain than XP (on service pack 2 and 3) which means more of your computers speed is going to running the OS and not your editing programs
Further its a large OS to install, and whilst you will probably have a large harddrive on the computer anyway - why waste space on the OS
Finally if you do go vista I emplor you to get the ultimate edition - its far more stable and smooth running than the other editions - its worth spending a little more on the full OS which works rather than dealing with the problems later on (though vista has got better over time, ultimate is still more stable)


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## Christie Photo (Aug 1, 2008)

OK....  It's done.

I went with XP Pro.  The deciding factor was cost.  The machine I bought has just 2gb of memory.  I'm told Vista wants more.

This is what I ordered.

A big THANK YOU to all who weighed in.

-Pete


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## Bifurcator (Aug 1, 2008)

Cost? Then why not use Hackintosh or Linux? Both are better OS's and both cheeper than XP Pro. Oh well.


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## peterbj7 (Aug 1, 2008)

Four reasons to buy XP if you can still get it:-

1)   Vista is a system hog, and you need monstrous specifications to get the same performance as a much lower spec machine running XP

2)   Vista won't run some of the popular software out there, and in some cases there isn't yet a Vista version

3)   Vista is (still) full of bugs and I know lots of users who constantly have problems with it

4)   Vista is designed to spy on your computer usage and report on it to Microsoft.  This is secret so you don't know what it's monitoring, and you can't turn it off.  One example is checking for "illegal" music downloads

I will never run Vista, mainly for reason (4).  When the time comes that I can no longer get a machine that will run XP (and that will happen, as XP drivers are not being produced for hardware components developed since Vista was announced), at that point I'll switch either to Mac or Linux.  I know many people with this view and intention.


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## Bifurcator (Aug 1, 2008)

5) You want to support a corporation that promotes and practices eugenics in 3rd world nations.


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## dEARlEADER (Aug 1, 2008)

fwiw.... i've been running a Vista machine since last november without any trouble whatsoever....

i remember people used to the same thing when xp came out.... stick with windows98 it's better....

who's still using windows 98?


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## Garbz (Aug 1, 2008)

None of you clearly use any form of colour management. On a photography forum this question is a no brainer.

Vista when it pops up a UAC window, or an application crashes and it greys the background clobbers the monitor correction curves. Yes that's right, windows XP didn't provide the option to load video LUT curves from the ICC profile, and Vista takes the glorious leap backwards in actively resetting them every ****ing time you want to do something as basic as install a piece of software.

Forget the other bugs, the slowness, the interface which completely screws your chance of running a computer at any kind of speed with less than 1.5GB of ram while at the same time not supporting more than 3.5GB (another reason not to use it for photo editing, anyone here do panoramas?)  .....

I could go on but if the two points above aren't blatently enough to turn you off Vista I would just be wasting my breath. Christie you made the right choice in my opinion. Vista will always have it's supporters, but then so did Windows ME.



dEARlEADER said:


> fwiw.... i've been running a Vista machine since last november without any trouble whatsoever....
> i remember people used to the same thing when xp came out.... stick with windows98 it's better....
> who's still using windows 98?



Paradigm shift mate. You should be asking who would still run Windows 98 if you could do on it everything that you can do on Windows XP. Maybe one day when Photoshop CS5, directx 10, or another program I desperately need drags me to upgrading by the short and curlies I will join you. The place I work just caved into Vista so I'm forced to there. But if I actually looked forward to that kind of pain I'd join an S&M club. At least it's more fun.

Installing a new system for the privilage of things no longer working and running much slower than they were previously is not something I consider an upgrade.


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## Alex_B (Aug 2, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Installing a new system for the privilage of things no longer working and running much slower than they were previously is not something I consider an upgrade.


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## Renair (Aug 2, 2008)

I've had Vista for over a year, not a single problem or bug or crash or anything.  Using a laptop with home premium and 3 gigs of ram, 1.6g Processor, run lightroom and cs3 extended with no issues what so ever.


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## dEARlEADER (Aug 2, 2008)

Garbz said:


> None of you clearly use any form of colour management. On a photography forum this question is a no brainer.
> 
> Vista when it pops up a UAC window, or an application crashes and it greys the background clobbers the monitor correction curves. Yes that's right, windows XP didn't provide the option to load video LUT curves from the ICC profile, and Vista takes the glorious leap backwards in actively resetting them every ****ing time you want to do something as basic as install a piece of software.
> 
> ...



But Ram and systems are cheap Garbz....... this argument kinda sounds like shooting jpeg because raw files are bigger.... I will concede Vista is not for the person who has a 4 year old machine and wants to upgrade the OS....

As for the colour space issue I need you to school me more.....  I use plain old srgb format thought my workspace..... I am not understanding the issues you mention.... help me?

My machine is quite quick 3 gig ram and I have no performance issues... panos....hdrs.... no problem... the only slowness I've experienced was using Nikon software to convert NEF to TIFF... turns out that's Nikons inattention to detail...

I'm not trying to sit here and promote Microsoft or Vista (I could really care less)for any particular reason other than I bought it... I'm not experiencing any difficulties worth mentioning.... I still run XP at work and my laptop... and for a home pc adequately supplied I like Vista it better...

tell me more about the colourspace...


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## nynfortoo (Aug 2, 2008)

You can switch UAC off. I have done*, and haven't experienced any colour space issues.


*it annoyed me when I first installed Vista, though my brother assures me after a few days of regular use, it's set up well enough to not be too naggy. I still don't feel the need to switch it back on; I've never had my system compromised in any way in the decade I've been online.


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## Easy_Target (Aug 2, 2008)

Christie Photo said:


> Well...  I'm finally ready to add a computer.  Although I'm a Mac fan, I'm sticking with Windows since everything else is in place.
> 
> I can still buy a computer with XP Pro.  It's what I know.
> 
> ...


If you plan on getting a new computer, stick with XP Pro. If you plan on getting 4GB of ram or more, get XP Pro x64. It's a crapton better than 64bit vista.

Vista = feature bloat lvl 10 + resource hog
XP Pro x64 = feature bloat lvl 4


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## shorty6049 (Aug 2, 2008)

maybe you should check out THIS

i love vista and only had compatability issues in the first couple months it was out.


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## peterbj7 (Aug 2, 2008)

I know people who have many compatibility issues with machines supplied with Vista, where the machine won't run software they already have and want to run and which hasn't been rewritten for Vista.  To say nothing of performance.  I get 10 hours battery life from an HP laptop running XP.  The equivalent Vista model is stated to run for just over an hour, and it runs much hotter because of the serious processing going on.

I installed XP on someone else's desktop machine supplied with Vista because of the problem running certain software, and the performance improvement is remarkable.  The machine is a fairly up-market model with a fast dual processor and 4gb of RAM, yet under Vista ran barely adequately.  CS3 Photoshop ran like a dog, taking maybe three minutes to load a RAW file from the owner's D3.  With XP a RAW image loads almost instantly, and all other aspects of performance have improved commensurately.  Of course, I was lucky that there were XP drivers for all devices installed on the machine - I gather that is increasingly not the case.

But my main beef with Vista is the spying aspect, which I refuse to accept.  That is why I will NEVER run Vista on a computer I own.


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## Alex_B (Aug 3, 2008)

shorty6049 said:


> maybe you should check out THIS
> 
> i love vista and only had compatability issues in the first couple months it was out.



remember, for most people performance of the system does not matter anyway. just us photographers, in particular those doing things which need a lot of cpu and memory, then graphic designers and all those strange people, they want performance.

oh, and gamers, but they need a different kind of performance.


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## Garbz (Aug 3, 2008)

dEARlEADER said:


> But Ram and systems are cheap Garbz....... this argument kinda sounds like shooting jpeg because raw files are bigger.... I will concede Vista is not for the person who has a 4 year old machine and wants to upgrade the OS....
> 
> As for the colour space issue I need you to school me more.....  I use plain old srgb format thought my workspace..... I am not understanding the issues you mention.... help me?



No we shoot RAW for features. But it's still coming from the wrong angle. Why should I upgrade a 4 year old computer with Windows XP to vista $1000 for hardware, $200 for the OS, only to get no speed improvement, no superior features, compatibility woes, and the joy of re-learning the UI. I don't think it relates to RAW vs JPEG. I think it relates to switching to RAW only because you have a faster CF card.

It's not a colour space issue, it's a video hardware Look-up Table issue. Vista has made some great progress with colour management support, but the fact that UAC clobbers the Lookup table (and still does with service pack 1) is an inexcusable oversight. Fortunately nynfortoo has the obvious answer to this problem, but it still shows the low level of thought and teamwork that goes into the development.

Don't get me wrong Vista is the future. It has to be. We'll eventually have to upgrade regardless as support for old systems dies. I am just complaining about the old saying in the IT circles: "What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away" You may not notice the speed outright, but put two identical computers next to each other and work on them at the same time and it's jawdropping from the moment you're sitting there playing freecell on the XP box while you are still waiting for Vista to get to the logon screen :lmao:



nynfortoo said:


> You can switch UAC off. I have done*, and haven't experienced any colour space issues.


:thumbup: Stupid design in the first place. Let's improve security by annoying the user so much that we end up training them to click continue to every box that appears.


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## nynfortoo (Aug 3, 2008)

Garbz said:


> :thumbup: Stupid design in the first place. Let's improve security by annoying the user so much that we end up training them to click continue to every box that appears.



Indeed. The people who know how to look after their computer and stay safe just switch it off; the people who don't know how to look after their computer either switch it off, or just accept any UAC prompt.


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## Overread (Aug 3, 2008)

I always thought microsoft could have helped users so much if they just named stuff in an understandable manner - take that running programs menu (ctrl alt del). Take a look at that and pick out the virus - good luck as you can't even get a refrence for which are good and which are bad without going online (not much help if your computer is shot with viruses).


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## usayit (Aug 3, 2008)

Overread said:


> I always thought microsoft could have helped users so much if they just named stuff in an understandable manner - take that running programs menu (ctrl alt del). Take a look at that and pick out the virus - good luck as you can't even get a refrence for which are good and which are bad without going online (not much help if your computer is shot with viruses).



Ah so what were you expecting.

i_am_virus.exe
meavirus.exe
virus.exe

????

You are not making sense.  Virus programs can easily fork of any process that looks legit.  Sometimes they are inserted into space allocated by a "good" process.


Perhaps if MS kept all processes within the confines of the resources that were allocated.  Perhaps if processes didn't all run as system or administrator?  Perhaps they could actually leverage a decent user login/security system.  There's a long list of what they could do... but as Garbz said... it is easier code in a pop-up and annoy the crap out of the user.


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## shorty6049 (Aug 3, 2008)

well if all you guys HATE vista so much, you can always wait for Windows 7 in a couple years


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## Overread (Aug 3, 2008)

usayit said:


> Ah so what were you expecting.
> 
> i_am_virus.exe
> meavirus.exe
> ...


 
Other way around - the good telling us in plain english that they are good and also being on a checklist (a nice little list given to us with the new computer). That would at least let us know all the critical system processes we shouldn't shutdown


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## shorty6049 (Aug 3, 2008)

does XP have that though? the list USUALLY tells you what each process is if its a windows process


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## peterbj7 (Aug 3, 2008)

There are utilities you can run (on XP at any rate - don't know about Vista) which tell you the provenance of all programs/systems running.  Bill P's Winpatrol for example.  Not perfect but a lot better than nothing.  I go through my "automatically running" programs every few days and am often surprised at what has been added to the list without my knowing.


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## peterbj7 (Aug 3, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Don't get me wrong Vista is the future. It has to be. We'll eventually have to upgrade regardless as support for old systems dies



I respectfully disagree with your implication that we have to "upgrade" to the next MS offering.  I know corporate users who liked Win98SE because of its vastly better security than later systems, and only moved away from it when MS made it impossible for them to stay with it.  Many of them have never been happy with XP as you can drive a coach and horses through its security, and they won't even contemplate Vista.  Most of them don't like Macs for corporate use as they have many issues, mostly to do with compatibility and reliability.  No, all the organisations I'm thinking of moved to Linux as soon as they could once they realised MS weren't serious about improving XP security.  I'm thinking of some pretty big hard hitters here, not little companies that don't matter in the overall scheme of things.

MS have been appalled at the unprecedented and extremely low elective take-up of Vista, and seriously hurt in the pocket.  That's why they've been giving it away to major corporate clients, as they know that what people get used to at work they tend to buy for home.  That's how MS Office got its stranglehold on the market, because it was then and is now far from the best product of its type.  And that's also why many PC manufacturers will now only supply machines with Vista pre-installed and why XP drivers are not being written for many new peripherals and internal devices.  It's because MS are applying enormous corporate muscle behind the scenes.  They hope that eventually Vista will acquire sufficient market inertia that it will fly regardless of merit, just as Office did.  Reading comments like the above must delight them.

Well, many market analysts think that Vista is doomed.  I'm not saying that the name will die, as clearly MS have a lot riding on that, but the substance behind the name will change radically.  The fact is that many people chose to buy XP for their own use and they're not doing that with Vista.  A major reason is that so much pre-existing software that ran under all previous versions of Windows won't run at all under Vista, though as people realise the implications of the spying aspects that becomes an even stronger disincentive.

My decision never to use Vista as currently constituted is not a quick "knee jerk" decision, but a considered one based on my (mostly second-hand) knowledge of it.  If I find I can't buy a new machine with XP, or that XP can't be installed on a new machine because of the driver issue, that's when I'll make the move to Linux.  That's been an attractive option for some time now and it's becoming easier as the system becomes ever more user-friendly.  I've already junked most MS applications as for every one there's a better alternative, and at that point I'll wave goodbye to MS.  I'll join the three universities I went to in the UK and two major companies I worked for there which have all made the one-way move already.

I was for some years an assembler programmer, and wrote operating systems for small computers (less powerful than todays wrist watches!).  Although I haven't done that for years I still have some knowledge of what's out there, and have looked at some of MS's software.  Mostly it's appallingly written, with branches and patches everywhere and great lumps of unused code that's supposedly been bypassed.  Small wonder they keep finding problems they hadn't anticipated, as some of these supposedly inactive chunks of code suddenly start running.  And they keep a large chunk of memory where they store things intended to be used by lots of programs (mostly operating system programs).  You probably know this area as the "registry".  This area is dreadfully maintained and out of control, which is why most Windows machines have to be rebooted periodically and why there are so many external routines that try to do what Windows should do for itself without the users even knowing about it.  Both Mac OS and Linux do a vastly better job of managing their own internal resources.  Windows is and has always been a gigantic con on the public, and it owes its success to slick marketing and devious business practices, not intrinsic merit.


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## Garbz (Aug 4, 2008)

Surely it's not too hard to do a quick google search for the process name in the off chance that you get a virus. This is reasonably advanced stuff. I doubt Microsoft has any intention of having people even figure out what the task manager is, let alone provide a manual to how it normally operates. That and this changes depending on the system, and even changes between service packs. A list of normal processes is pretty meaningless since there's no definition of normal.

Yes I didn't mention Linux as an alternative because most users won't consider it. Mac I could understand to a degree, but most users (and i'm talking mumma and pappa users here, not power users like us) will opt to stay with windows because it's what they know. They are the type of people that will go to Dell to upgrade their computers only to be told as of a few months ago that XP is no longer available on most products, and they need to pay extra to get it on the business line of products.

While there are alternatives, few have the knowledge to consider them, and those along with the fact that many people still require windows support are already being dragged to Vista. As a student our uni part of the MSDNAA even gave me a free upgrade to vista, I still don't use it.

Also on the topic of the dodgy code, I think it's not a case of badly written code, but a bad ideal of having to grasp with both hands backed by corporate culture on the notion of remaining compatible with legacy apps. This was found in the code leak last year which was covered in comments such as "This line is stupid but needed to make xxx work". Macs would be just this bad if they didn't say ******** to this we're switching to a UNIX kernel, and writing something that's good, not something that's over-compatible. I wish this would happen with windows.


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## Christie Photo (Aug 4, 2008)

Wow.  Fascinating read!

Thanks, everyone, for taking time.

-Pete


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## usayit (Aug 4, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Also on the topic of the dodgy code, ...



That and the rather large development team required to meet the set aggressive deadlines of a release date.  Large development teams are VERY difficult to manage (left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing).  Often the core design engineer(s) don't necessarily agree with a single unified strategy.  This shows in the final quality of the release product.  

My memory is foggy but I vaguely remember graphics API during the Windows 98 and Windows NT being one such example.  One team embraced Direct3D and the other team embraced OpenGL....

Ran into this while I was coordinating a project with Intel.  We were a single team with a single project but had to coordinate with two groups within Intel.. one dedicated for server line and the other dedicated to workstation line.  It was very confusing... glad I wasn't the lead or single point of contact between the groups.


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## Garbz (Aug 5, 2008)

Ahh yes I know what you mean. I wonder how many coders are on the job of the OS compared to Apple's OS team. Would make for some interesting comparisons.


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## Easy_Target (Aug 5, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Don't get me wrong Vista is the future. It has to be.


Isn't that what they said about Windows ME?


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## shorty6049 (Aug 5, 2008)

well, you could always just go to the store and try a computer with vista on it to see if you like how it feels or something. If you have a capable computer and all you'll be doing is photoshop, then you have nothing to worry about either way you go.


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## Bifurcator (Aug 5, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Also on the topic of the dodgy code, I think it's not a case of badly written code, but a bad ideal of having to grasp with both hands backed by corporate culture on the notion of remaining compatible with legacy apps. This was found in the code leak last year which was covered in comments such as "This line is stupid but needed to make xxx work". Macs would be just this bad if they didn't say ******** to this we're switching to a UNIX kernel, and writing something that's good, not something that's over-compatible. I wish this would happen with windows.





usayit said:


> That and the rather large development team required to meet the set aggressive deadlines of a release date.  Large development teams are VERY difficult to manage (left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing).  Often the core design engineer(s) don't necessarily agree with a single unified strategy.  This shows in the final quality of the release product.



Yeah, there's team management and mediocrity among coders to consider. I've been part of large dev teams so I know this goes without saying. In windows case for all versions and I do mean ALL versions, it's mostly a case of a really poor outside design. For those not familiar with the term "outside design" think "hierarchical structure" of the OS. It is now and always has been worse than anything else on the market and computer scientists have been complaining about it since day one really.

When I hear terms like "dodgy code" however my focus of attention goes directly to the backdoors purposely set into the system specially designed for access by the US secret government (or alphabet agencies as some refer to them as). This isn't conspiracy theory as we've busted them doing it countless times in the past - so while it is "conspiracy" it's not theoretical. I suppose Apple is involved in this as well however though I haven't heard anything about it. I guess Linux is the safe bet in this regard of "dodgy code" where access to the source code is readily available and many people compile their own cores. 

The microsoft company itself and the bill and melisa gates foundation is the reason I refuse to actively or knowing purchase or use any of their products. They're heavily involved in racially selective eugenics and aim to depopulate countries and continents on large scales. We had that same problem (from basically the same group) in the 1930's or so and we took care of it. I wonder why no one thinks about it now - maybe because it's painted on a background of "health care" with shallow guise phrases like "family planning" and "disease prevention"? Anyway, I for one am paying attention. Microsoft? No thanks!


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## Bifurcator (Aug 5, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Ahh yes I know what you mean. I wonder how many coders are on the job of the OS compared to Apple's OS team. Would make for some interesting comparisons.



There are close to about 18,000 "apple employees". There are about 650 in the engineering dept. What they all do is more diverse - that's just the rounded number of checks cut in Jan 08. The 18K includes sales, support, and corporate for example and of the 650 I'm sure there are graphic designers, technical writers, or even assistants and receptionists in the mix. I also am not clear if that is the 61% that occupies the geographical location known as the USA or if that includes the other 39% abroad - when discussing the engineering dept. The 18K is a world wide figure.

Microsoft with their fingers in MANY MANY more pies (DNA research and "public health"  included),  I'm sure is much more massive.


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## usayit (Aug 5, 2008)

oh here we go again....  :er:


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## peterbj7 (Aug 5, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> The microsoft company itself and the bill and melisa gates foundation is the reason I refuse to actively or knowing purchase or use any of their products. They're heavily involved in racially selective eugenics and aim to depopulate countries and continents on large scales. We had that same problem (from basically the same group) in the 1930's or so and we took care of it. I wonder why no one thinks about it now - maybe because it's painted on a background of "health care" with shallow guise phrases like "family planning" and "disease prevention"? Anyway, I for one am paying attention. Microsoft? No thanks!



I think the reason is that most people don't know about it.  I didn't until i read your post - my view is simply based on the lamentable quality and devious nature of the product.  Can you say more about MS's dubious activities, or give references?


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