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back to article Microsoft spits out final XP service pack, beta version

Microsoft yesterday quietly dished out a beta version of its Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), but also continued to bang the less-than-convincing "Vista is better for you" drum. By the time a full version of the update arrives, expected in the first half of 2008, it will have been nearly four years since Windows XP SP2 was …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    various response

    > I need a Windows 2000 SP5.

    You're not alone on this. I recently replaced XP on my laptop with Windows 2000 just for kicks. It's really more responsive than when it was running XP and I ended up deciding to permanently use it for the lappy. I hate to think of what will happen if I should plop Vista on that machine.

    > come reinstall time, guess what you'll have to install?

    Well, I already run Debian, and I don't want Ubuntu due to it's feeble nature of lacking a root account, so I'll probably try Knoppmyth on my Media Center and Mandrake on my gaming rig. My old laptop will either stick to Win2K (for those just-in-case conditions that may arise) or run OpenBSD. Win2K couldn't be that bad. I even still run Mac OS 9 on my PowerMac instead of plopping a PPC Linux or BSD distro on it.

    Too bad I'll probably end up with a printer I can't use and a useless PhysX card (Where's the Linux driver Ageia promised years ago?!?).

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  2. amanfromMars Silver badge

    @Ordinary Punters

    "The problem is, most of you on here are IT experts or heavyweight users. The "average" punter on the street knows no different. He see the latest MS ad showing this wonderful new system that can protect him and do evrything he/she wants. How is he to know any different? The MS marketing team are good at selling to the average user.

    Unfortunetly Vista is here to stay...

    woody"

    And that is an exact mirror of the sub-prime/credit crunch markets unravelling disaster, is it not. Dodgy Deal Control Meltdown/Payback.

    And if proved to be Valid, will lose Microsoft all of ITs Credibility as a Team Player.

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  3. Mike Dyne
    Happy

    Why upgrade?

    Simple - Solitaire is prettier and you can have a DX10 "My Pictures" screensaver AND Minesweeper has sound effects! YEAH!

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Historically the Last SP is always sabotaged...

    I'm convinced (this is pure speculation of course) that every last Service Pack I've ever used since Win 95 has sabotaged each OS at the end of its life. The net effect of this (alleged) strategy psychologically makes everyone "warm" to the next "shiny" OS as being "faster". And up until the final SP no-one wants to install it before that stage.

    Microsoft need to start realising that people do not want to continually upgrade PCs to the latest version just because of a service pack update, and of course the extra system demands in terms of performance that the new OS brings to bear on 2 year old tech in your "box".

    Does your Mum really need something that rivals the performance of a CRAY supercomputer to send emails or surf the web? Do they even need Office 2010 for that poster to sell their car?

    I've always thought there's a big conspiracy between M$ and the hardware manufacturers. Or of course they might just be helping drive technology forwards... (irrespective of the commercial benefits) for the betterment of all Mankind - After all - If we were technological luddites - I suppose we'd all still be running DOS or using 8 bit machines and bulletin boards via dial up still.

    Cue garage tech throwout dilemma - or hours googling sources for a 5.25 inch floppy drive for my PC to read all my 8-bit Atari games?

    Recycling driven by OS changes... now there's an idea - does M$ consider their strategies to be helpfully "carbon neutral" as the media refers to it... :)

    Dirk

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  5. wibbilus maximus
    Boffin

    @ Matthew

    I presented what I hoped was a balanced argument (thank you for the acknowlegement) but to respond with "Vista is SHIT" is just an awful response. Like i've said, I've been using it for nearly a year. I still find some things about it annoying, but that is to do with the UI. There are a few features removed which again is annoying but not critical.

    As I have stated, use XP if you are not going for 64Bit computing, but there is almost nothing (and I have found a few things which personally I find annoying or inconvenient) that is in XP but NOT in Vista.

    Vista is XP with a flashy UI. Personally, I wish they had left the UI alone. Some things about it look nice but that doesn't bother me. In turns of performance, Vista is slower then XP on the same hardware, no argument there either.

    Saying that Vista is shit though is just not true, UAC (which i turn off) is annoying but then if you speak to the vast majority of computer users, UAC is something they need to protect them. Yes it is a typical bolt on from MS, but to an ignorant user it MIGHT just stop them doing something stupid.

    In the end of the day, Vista just takes a couple of weeks of using to get used to and then the UI stops getting in the way because you've learnt all the new names and the new routes to all the old stuff in XP. Use it for a while and you'll see it's not the radical change that MS wants people to think it is and, unfortunately, a lot of people have fallen into that trap

    In essence Vista is to XP what 98 was to 95.

    It's the 64Bit support that is the real difference

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ah go on

    seems that a fair portion of the blame can be laid at the door of pc world et al for selling underspec "designed for xp" machines with "designed for vista" labels slapped on 'em.

    mind you we're doing a roaring trade in memory to non savvy clients so i ain't complaining

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  7. Andy Enderby

    @Steve Hewitt

    errrr......

    DX10 - Unless you're in a game dev house, what the hell is this bloat required for in an enterprise environment ? Or are the techies all playing Crysis when they should be on the blower.....

    DRM - Media player apps in the workplace ? Truly marvellous time-sinks, the users will end up spending their time loading their CD/DVD collections onto iPods/youtube/who cares......

    The problems with both of the above are more truly anchored with home users and the appropriate home versions of Vista, where the lack of performance is going cause a deal more anger when wee Johnny/Jane can't play Super Turbo Turkey Thwacker DX10 edition (insert real game here......) with all the detail turned on. Especially when Johnny/Jane could do so with the DX9 version that looked no different, but they had been running it on considerably more modest hardware.

    DRM - Home users and media...... Show stopper if only because this what the home user typically uses a lot. Yes users shouldn't be raiding the web for free content, but haven't the ISP's and everyone else been implying for years that the internet is all about just that - free content. Basic file copy/move operations should not be bollixed by DRM which it currently is. If content is stolen/misappropriated what the **** is wrong with it being checked at the time it is played, and simply not played.... ie it simply occupies space on the hard disk. MS should not be attempting to take corporate responsibility for other vendors failure to implement DRM into apps or hardware.

    SuperFetch sounds like a great idea but the truth is everything in RAM has to get there through the same bus as everything else, and as the computer is used superfetch is going to run its arse off trying to pre-empt the user. It's a recipe for the whole PC to become I/O bound for no good reason. It sounds like the kind of thing that happens when you mistune kernel parameters in *nix in search of ever greater interactive performance only to see that performance disappear. It should be switched off as default. Given PC architecture, superfetch seems to be a brain damaged decision in the majority of cases.

    Performance.... In the majority of cases is going ot be better with XP, especially for gaming.

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  8. BitTwister

    @various response

    > I don't want Ubuntu due to it's feeble nature of lacking a root account

    Rightly or wrongly, Canonical put quite a bit of effort into protecting ex-Windows users from themselves and their inherited bad OS habits - hence the push towards using 'sudo' instead of logging on as root all over the place. But, doing 'sudo -s' will likely get what you want. Or, edit the 'sudoers' file as required - or indeed, tweak the already-existing root account via sudo to allow a more conventional root account.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Makes you wonder though

    "Vista is built on XP and is NOT unstable as an OS however, due to the lack of driver support provided by manufacturers, there is a lot of hardware that DOES cause the OS to crash."

    Built on Xp eh? Not redesigned from the ground up with security in mind then? Damn, I've been conned again!

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  10. Chad H.
    Flame

    @ wibblus

    [Excised by Reg moderator.]

    If vista was xp with shiny, like you claim, there wouldn't be any serious compatibilty issues, old drivers would work, as would almost all programs.

    But wait, they don't. Vista isnt 98 to 95. Vista is NT4 to 95 (Or should that be the other way round?). The kernel has changed, this is why a billion pieces of hardware dont work anymore

    [Excised by Reg moderator.]

    Btw - if vista isnt crap, why are there articles in every it magazine, with the notable exception of windows vista magazine outlining huge performance drops when compared to the same, or even lower spec pcs, running XP

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  11. wibbilus maximus
    Boffin

    @ Chad

    Time for an education lesson. Of course the kernel has changed. If it didn't change, it would still be Windows XP. That is a stupid statement to make. Every new OS has a different kernel.

    Vista is built on XP which is why there is compatability in Vista for XP. And as most new hardware actually does work if you force XP (and sometimes even W2K) drivers to be used, this makes your argument worthless.

    And BTW, if you go back and READ my post you will see that as I have stated and for your benefit will state again, I agree there is a performance drop in Vista to XP on the same hardware. Logically if you stick to your argument, you'll still be using windows 3.1 as no Microsoft OS can perform as well as DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 on the same hardware.

    To say that Vista is crap because of performance issues is a very poor argument. There are several issues that are negative points for Vista and there are several plus points as well.

    As i must keep saying, if you are going to compare XP to Vista, make sure you are comparing EVERYTHING.

    XP 64Bit versus Vista 64Bit, I dare you to still say XP is better (if you do prepare to be riduculed by everyone who has ever used XP64).

    And BTW, as NT4 and 95 worked completely differently, you might want to retract your statement which undermines your arguments even further almost to the point of them being just an Anti-Vista rant from someone who has clearly not used it.

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