Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta

Good morning! Yep I love all my tech toys, except my Palm stuff. Palm stuff is definitely unreliable with constant need of reset. I was able to use the Pro Tower with work because of Leopard and Vista. This site encouraged me to use it and not fear it. Mike really inspired me to fully use Exchange, which led to interest in the iPhone [purchased as a present by my wife], and Exchange related stuff as well as Windows Live, which has some really useful stuff. I think that I saw only one Live ad...I think. MS should promote it more, even if some stuff is beta, since I remember some phone company ad showing tablets and stuff that never emerged or did so years later. Tom Selleck narrated them. Live has great features. Either way, there is balance in both platforms, especially with Office and Exchange. Lastly, I truly like Entourage and Outlook. One program with many needed features is very useful.

Oh, man...I hope I am typing this before mikegalos sees that I made a typo in my post above...It is time to get on a plane for vacation....not a plan. I did the planning part over the last couple of months. I hope I didn't confuse you too much there, mikegalos! --tayme

"Maybe he just says what you want to hear?" Well, I don't agree with him on everything - especially Apple and innovation and I've pointed it out in the past too. See, I like some of Apple's products. I just don't like this idea of picking on MS to sell products, especially when much of it is based on FUD. I agree with Paul that the ads have gone too far. Regarding the MS ad, why is that even relevant? That was six years ago. Six years ago. Why is that being used as justification for Apple's ads? In any case, there's a huge difference - Microsoft was publicly criticized for those ads and the company apologized. See? Most Mac fanatics see the world as black and white. It's the good Apple vs. the evil Microsoft. "But Microsoft is evil" is a used as justification for any of Apple's eggheaded moves. Note this the next time Apple does something stupid. Someone will bring up something Microsoft did twenty years ago. "They did it too" is the worst possible defense that you can come up with. Try using it with a cop the next time you're speeding. Also, nice post there, subzero!

tayme A couple of things before you go on vacation... If you read back, you'll find I never say people don't have reasons for using Apple products. They have benefits that are the best choice in some cases. But I don't think they're divinely inspired perfection that should be treated as religious icons. Apple the company, on the other hand, has been acting like they actually deserve to be on that pedestal and treat their user and developers horribly and that I consider valid for criticism. In fact, if anything, I hold Apple to the level they deserve. For a time, they were the industry leaders in innovation. It's been a long time and I hold them to one of two behaviors: Start innovating and driving the industry forward as they used to in the 1980s or stop acting as though they're the same company that did Lisa, Macintosh and Laserwriter. I'd prefer the former but I'll sadly accept the latter. Right now, they're a mediocre has been that acts as though they're ready for their close up. As for the spelling error, I almost never criticize typos. I do only in the few cases where a word is commonly used in place of another. An example is using loose for lose. It's a pet peeve and a personal flaw but I don't do it that often so I'll live with it.

Yep, I hear ya. Look at this: http://www.smarthome.com/slcsolution66.html?src=HML08RD33 If every home in America replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified CFL, in one year it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes. That would prevent the release of greenhouse gas emissions equal to that of about 800,000 cars. Saving electricity reduces CO2 emissions, sulfur oxide and high-level nuclear waste.

subzero "However, I do think it does need to be simplified to a Consumer, Business, and a Superset of both lines. 3 simple SKU's. You could go Home, Professional, Ultimate." Which is why I really have a problem with people acting as though there were dozens of SKUs. You suggest there be 3 SKUs. Let's name the Business one "Business" rather than "Professional" since that name might confuse people since XP Professional was a home SKU and not a business SKU. That leave us with Home, Business and Ultimate as your ideal. Right now at US Retail Microsoft has: Home (basic), Home (premium), Business and Ultimate. That's 4 rather than 3. And the only difference between what has been shipped for over two years now and what you propose as the ideal is dropping Home Basic from the line. That's it. One SKU dropped is the difference between what you say is ideal (and I'd tend to agree) and what you said was Microsoft going overboard and that you couldn't defend. To be fair, there are other SKUs that come up in conversation that shouldn't even be an issue since they aren't something that a consumer should even care about. Let's look... Windows Vista Starter - only sold in the developing world and not at retail Windows Vista Enterprise - only sold through the direct sales channel as part of a corporate licensing agreement Windows Vista "(n)" editions - only offered (and rarely sold) in the EU nations as part of anti-trust compliance OEM editions - shouldn't be offered at retail to anyone but an actual system builder and identical in features to the equivalent retail versions.

Mike, First, on the 11 listed Vista versions. It's just crazy to have that many. Even PAUL has said that. Second, on this bitable "Working with political groups I've seen examples of anti-Semitism in towns where nobody is Jewish and racism in towns so ethnically uniform you wonder if they'd freak out at a person with a good tan. Are you saying they're getting their bigotry based on an existing perception?" You're getting pretty close to the "Nazi limit" of usenet discussions. See Godkins law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law. Going so far down that road is a sure sign that you need to lighten up a bit. Finally, on this part, "As an example, how about if I spend say a million dollars paying people to say that you are a clueless bozo on every message board they can find? How much do you want to bet that by the third or fourth time they see a message about you they'll consider the first couple to be the "already widespread" stereotype. If you like, I'll have them say it as a joke about you being a clueless bozo and then defaming your character will be OK by your rules since it's comedy." Feel free. I'm sure you'll find a couple of fellow travelers here who'll go along with the "clueless bozo" part :) . On some things, I definitely AM a clueless bozo, but I try to make no pretensions in those areas. However, in spite of trying this gambit to get a sharp response from me, you know it's a phony argument, because what you will NOT find are dozens or hundreds of independent commentators who all separately and without collusion write that I'm a clueless bozo. However, you will find that independent commentary about Vista. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of such references on the internet. You want to deny that reality and blame it all on Apple. That's nonsense. In trying to avoid being a clueless bozo, let me make it clear that I don't know if the perception of Vista is correct or not. No idea. That the percpetion exists, is widespread and wasn't caused by Apple is obvious to everyone except you.

I think consumers are smart enough to pick a needed Vista version, so there are not too many. Also, what ever is pre-installed at their price point is what they will get any way, and probably not even care that there are several SKU's. For a business, the hardware and software will be scrutinized by a knowledgeable person who will fulfill the needs of the company and staff. I am reasonably sure that they won't get confused. Offering a less expensive version also helps consumer wallets [as well as giving 3 licenses when purchasing as they do with some versions of Office]. I personally have not heard of any one confused by the choices of Vista, although it's anecdotal.

Mike, On Vista versions, however YOU choose to count, 11 were listed. You also ignored the point that Paul has also said that the number of versions (however you want to count them) is too many. It's confusing, and I don't understand why MS does it. I suspect it is to get people to pay more, but I really don't know. The strategy makes no sense to me. On this, "In fact, if anything, I hold Apple to the level they deserve. For a time, they were the industry leaders in innovation. It's been a long time and I hold them to one of two behaviors: Start innovating and driving the industry forward as they used to in the 1980s or stop acting as though they're the same company that did Lisa, Macintosh and Laserwriter. I'd prefer the former but I'll sadly accept the latter. Right now, they're a mediocre has been that acts as though they're ready for their close up." You ignore the iPhone, which is a transformative device. That's obvious, everyone in the world is rushing out copies as fast as they can. Your disclaimer "We're talking about computers in this thread. Not iPods or iPhones or mouse pads." In what sense is the iPhone NOT a computer? The fact that it is a "phone" is almost incidental. Again, even PAUL has acknowledged the iPhone as a transformative device. I think you're even more a one man band than usual if you want to disregard the iPhone as evidence of Apple's innovation. In the desktop/laptop/server area, I don't think anyone with sense will disagree that is a pretty mature area. Neither Apple or Microsoft are innovating there at the pace of the mid-1980s. But Apple has defined and owns the portable music biz, and is now redefining "phones" as general purpose portable computing devices. Those are both real innovations, now worth billions a year.

Shark No question that the Windows XP versions were MUCH more confusing than Windows Vista. There was good reason for simplifying the number of versions in Vista. Compared with Vista's four retail versions you had the following with XP some of which were available at retail and some only through OEM. The (n), (k) and (nk) versions were the "take out a feature to make the regulators happy" versions so they really don't matter since nobody bought them. Windows XP Home Windows XP Home (n) Windows XP Home (k) Windows XP Home (kn) Windows XP Professional Windows XP Professional (n) Windows XP Professional (k) Windows XP Professional (kn) Windows XP Starter Edition Windows XP Media Center Edition Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003 Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 Windows XP 64-bit Edition for Itanium systems, Version 2002 Windows XP 64-bit Editionfor Itanium systems, Version 2003 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

shark "Guess who will be the first to accues Microsoft of fleecing end users ... yup, the very same Mac users who probably wouldn't buy a PC anyway and who call for one version of Windows now. " While they might not buy a PC anyway, they might very well want to buy a copy of Vista to run on their beloved Macs which, I suspect, is why their arguments eventually drift to dropping the price of Full Package Product Vista Ultimate rather than what features should be in Home Basic versus Home Premium.