6 Versions of Vista Are they nuts 3341

snips

On Sun, 05 Mar 2006 07:30:17 +0000, Roy Schestowitz

Indeed? So if I get my budget version of Vista for $199.95, but decide I want to host a multi-site web server, I can simply install IIS, for, say, $49.95? Or is that going to be a $700 upgrade to "Vista Server"?

Not kvetching, just asking. :)

re bundled apps

I wouldn't bet on it... and I certainly wouldn't bet on them offering non-MS products this way. Eg if I want, say, Postgres instead of SQL Server, will it be available via the MS-manged "repository"? Will their package manager update even non-MS applications? Their current approach doesn't even handle all MS's *own* apps, let alone anyone else's.

In short, when comparing Vista to Linux, what's it offer that can even pretend to compete with a tool such as Synaptic, for sheer ease of installing and updating applications, while letting *me* decide whether I want MS's solution, or someone else's?

Exactly. "We already bought Windows... why do we need to buy this other stuff?" Not to mention that when they actually *did* buy Office, they still didn't get what they thought they were paying for - so they felt doubly ripped off. Pay for Windows *and* pay for Office and *still* not get the tools they actually needed.

Not terribly objective, frankly, so I'm buttuming that was a tad of sarcasm... but let's be honest here, isn't it about freaking time MS got its act together enough to release a version of Windows that can actually be used safely without AV tools and the like?

OSX, as far as I'm aware, manages it. So does Unix. So does Linux. So do the various BSDs. Why can't Windows? At the very least, if you *have* to have that sort of hand-holding, why isn't it bundled as a part of the standard installation?

Look at 95, 98, ME and 2K as examples. Each had internet support - yet none of them bundled even a firewall, despite the fact that, in their default net-enabled configurations, they *desperately* needed one. Took 'em what, eight years to figure out that net-enabled machines kinda need a firewall, so let's bundle one, even if it is a crippled piece of crap?

MS has absolutely no interest in safe, reliable computing. Never have. If they did, firewalls and AV tools and anti-spyware and the like would have been standard issue since at least Win95, yet they're still not bundled, as of XP at least. Let's just say I don't have great faith that Vista will be notably better in this regard.

On the other hand... MS is in a very bad situation in that regard. Since they have created a multi-billion-dollar-a-year AV industry, should they attempt to bundled AV apps as freebies, they're liable to get slammed again for anticompebreastive practices, and justifiably so - they'd be doing to Norton's what they did to Netscape.

So on the one hand, if they don't bundle it, they look like incompetent boobs; if they do bundle it, they get slammed. It's a no-Win for them. I can't really say I feel to sorry for them, though, since the problem is entirely one of their own creation - if their stuff weren't such a sieve in the first place, the entire AV industry would be at most a bit player.

-- MS, because work should be measured by effort, rather than result.