[fgsjklejk]

PC world is great

[cb3431]

Since you are authoring simulation software, wouldn't you want to take advantage of Vista's ability to pass on the graphics processing to the graphics card?

Based on your statements, you haven't given me any sense of confidence in your company's ability to innovate a truly top notch flight simulator.

[drachir]

We already do that with Windows XP Professional in our top notch MATRIX and GFS simulators. And our Vital X visual systems on our full-flight simulators are also XP-based. Our real-time software has direct control of the Direct X API that renders the visual display driven by high-end graphics cards. The operating system simply provides the development environment and a GUI interface to control the trainers, analysis, and debugging tools. We also produce Linux, SGI IRIX, and Concurrent iHawk simulators. We waited about 5 years after Windows XP was released, before upgrading from Windows 2000. But we never have or ever plan to run a simulator with a Vista OS. That might change 5 years from now, but who knows what OSes will be out there then. Personally I'm hoping it will be Google-based.

[rgreen4]

Three years from now you'll probably be singing the praises of Vista and complaining of Windows 7, and bragging about saving money by skipping it.

[rtfire1]

So true rg. i was loling so hard i almost fell out of my chair at work

[drachir]

Possibly. That sounds about right, because it will probably take Microsoft another 3 years, and two more service packs, before Vista is patched enough to be useable by the mainstream.

[crazy4laptops]

i'm a mainstream user, and i deem vista useable for people with internet and word processing needs along with multimedia.

[drachir]

I meant the mainstream software development industry. That requires more than just internet, word processing, and multimedia. Mainstream developers need to have a stable platform to edit, compile, link, run, debug, and test their applications. Expensive development tools usually need to be upgraded to work under Vista as well, requiring further training as well.

[cb3431]

How do you know Vista isn't a stable development environment? You have already said you don't have Vista installed on any of the computers you use.

I develop with Vista and XP all the time. Vista is faster and a more enjoyable development environment. Sure it will take training to learn how to develop using the new technology introduced with Vista. Isn't that true for any new technology?

I don't even remember the last time my Vista laptop crashed and it's powered on in some form all the time.

[rgreen4]

Actually the mainstream software development industry has been using Vista for more than 2 years. How do you think they develop applications that run on Vista? Any software developer that does not develop for Vista is giving away a large chunk of their market.

[drachir]

You lucky people must be working for Microsoft, or your products must be Microsoft-centric. Your employer must be showering you with awesome Alienware, Acer Ferrari, and Dell XPS laptops. Your workstations are probably all extreme quad-cores with many Gigs of memory. You must have an exceptional IT department that keeps every one of your machines always up to date with the very latest Vista OS updates. Your software management team must have an stratospheric software development tool budget. And you must have plenty of free time to stay abreast of it all.

Our poor company has to continue struggling with old technology, because we don't have time, and can't afford to do the latest upgrades, along with the rest of you cutting-edge software development firms. I'm just glad that this article said that it was Vista and not XP that will be retired. It's probably not even true. It just sounded good from my perspective.

[Pizzaboy192]

Not true...

My System cost me only $400, and it runs vista ultimate just fine. I build systems for a living, and KNOW that vista can run on ANY system, If you know what you are doing. I perosnally have gotten vista to run on a 100mhz i486 processor with only 64 mb of ram. that would not be the Ideal system, but it is able to run. I also run it on my $400 system, which has a Dual Core AMD processor, ATI graphics, and 4+ gigs of ram.

dont make a stigma about something till you read the facts please...

[BKA4U2C]

Well for me its simple. I am an IT admin at a college. We have Vista installed in labs and some classrooms. After all, you can't teach something or offer degrees in something that you are not running. So it was a easy decision since PC and laptops are replaced on a 3 year cycle. Now as far as staff/faculty running Vista that's a different story. We have images created for those who wish to run Vista instead of XP. I would say right now its about 70(XP)/30(VISTA) with staff/faculty. All of our software works on it. The only thing that gave us problems upon release was the Shoretel software we use for VOIP.

[rgreen4]

I am a retired accountant. The company I retired from (a corrugated container manuf) is just retiring Windows 2000 from over 3,000 PC's company wide and rolling out Vista and replacing Office 2000 with Office 2007. They decided to skip XP altogether. Corporate IT tested all our third party and custom written software and it all ran fine. Some PC's are being replace, but not because Vista won't run on them, but because of their age, and they are being replaced in the normal course of service.

[rtfire1]

My it department can't wait to leave xp. Where we are very big Ins company they rolled it out to some people but most of us have been having to wait for that last check to make sure all the software works fine. We had a lot of little issues with the jump from 2000 to xp. The big problem was they went and rolled out new desktops for all of us and some of the old software was patched to play nice with xp the patchs did not work so well. Vista works fine so far but after the xp issue they are going very slowly to upgrade.

[brendanvista]

You are an idiot. If you are running Vista on a celeron with 512 ram, it sucks, but if you have at least a decent PC, Vista rocks. I lave aero glass on my beautiful 24 inch monitor. XP looks like a fisher price toy. Turn user account control off fist boot, even before you install drivers and you will like vista. I am running it on a Quad Core woth 8 gigs of ram, but even if you have just 2 cores and 2 gigs of ram, vista will run smooth. I highly recommend it. Vista may not be the best OS, but you guys are coming across as pretty bias.

[GMan]

My sentiments exactly! Vista-Bashers need to realize that (as much as they'd like it to) technology doesn't stand still.Spend a few bucks and upgrade!

Hardware is cheap!

G-Man

[coastie65]

I won't bash Vista, I just won't use it.

[rgreen4]

As one of the first in the community to adopt Vista (now on three machines), I like Vista and far prefer it to XP. However, for those who genuinely prefer and are content with XP, there is at this point absolutely no reason to change. XP is a perfectly good operating system that accomplished the goal. Vista also is a perfectly good operating system that accomplishes its goal. I still run XP on two older machines and as a dual boot on one of the Vista machines.
There are many poor or cobbled installations of both out there that give trouble. I have a factory installation and two clean installs of Vista and have had no problems with any of them. I did have XP MCE on one machine that gave me fits, but in hindsight I really think it was the Symantec Norton's Internet Security that came from the factory that was at fault. It did cause me to install free Vista upgrade earlier than I had planned, so alls well that end's well. The upgrade was installed as a clean install with no trace of the XP install or Norton's on the machine ever again.
There are still people who are running Windows 2000 and are happy with it. It is also a good OS that accomplishes it's goal.
For anyone out there happy with their OS, do not let the snipping of others dissuade you from continuing to use an OS that you are happy with.
For anyone out there unhappy with their OS, investigate what others are available and experiment around until you find one that does make you happy.
For anyone that thinks everyone should be using the same OS as you, your wrong. That what's so great about our PC's. Everyone can run the OS they like and the programs they like. They can modify the desktop background, the icons, and the wall paper to their hearts desire.

[drachir]

rgreen4, I agree with you entirely. Vista works for you, so that's great. It's really just my own personal opinion that I don't want to upgrade to Vista. I simply can't justify the expense, happy enough to continue using XP Pro, and I don't want to risk a Vista install on my machines that are working just fine with XP Pro.