Attention : Windows Genuine Advantage = Spyware

Why does the fact that there are other money-grabbing wankers out there affect decisions regarding Microsoft? There aren't any in the same arena as they are.

What stunning innovations have been introduced by other OSes of late?

He said they were being pirated because the OS costs too much - I was pointing out that Windows closest competitor costs the same thing - Windows is not priced unreasonably.

OS X introduces new functions every release. Nothing changes in XP, it's the same as it was five years ago apart from bug fixes.

Every point release that you pay for a full OS upgrade for? I asked about innovations, which is what you said.

Windows' closest competitor costs nothing. OS X is not an alternative to Windows unless you want to buy a new computer, which, well, most people don't.

I said innovations, I meant innovations. Different releases introduce new features. There aren't any new releases for Windows, so you have to pay the same price now for a five year old OS as you did.

I'm not sure quite what you're asking here. If you want innovations, Windows doesn't have 'em.

Linux is not a realistic closest competitor to Windows - its desktop share is nil compared to the MacOS.

The two halves of that sentence don't prove each other...

...nevertheless, Linux *is* the closest competitor to Windows. If it isn't, what is?

Nor does the MacOS. New features are not innovations, In that same time frame, you've paid $500+ to keep up with MacOS, which does not have a dramatic amount of features that Windows XP somehow doesn't. Widgets? Copied from Konfabulator. Integrated OS search? Copied from Google. The list goes on. These aren't innovations, just me too features taken from competitors.

You are wrong that people do not buy new computers to switch OSes. The MacOS is Windows closest competitor for marketshare, not Linux. My point was it is priced the same as Windows XP, and that Windows XP itself is not overpriced.

Meh. Things like this don't concern me as much as the arms race building up at Redmond.

Microsoft, ever since achieving its monopoly status, has been in the business of bullying its consumers. It's this position that has led to the whole "we don't trust you to buy our shit," simply because the consumer has no reason to do so, aside from it being "the only way."




Frankly, I like my computer to just work. I'm a self-respecting geek, so I decided to switch to a 'nix. I've never been happier.

Yet.

That's not a choice everyone can make. The folks that are getting hurt by all of this "authorization," "verification," and "we don't trust you" crap aren't the pirates, or the geeks for that matter; it's the honest, less computer-savvy consumers.

The irony being, to spare yourself the privacy risk, you're basically forced to... blot out the protections. Sometimes by using a hack. It's a very slippery slope, since it criminalizes more and more of the honest consumers...




In any event, I don't like it. Hence my own choice to switch. The options are few, which is precisely why Microsoft can pull this stuff and still have all of us put up with it. It really comes down to forging your own protection. The "big scary megacorp" won't do it for you.

Nor do they really want to.

Microsoft Support

There are all sorts of ways that Microsoft tries to support their products. What other ways do you need to find access to the information you are looking for?

I think my issue is that I get toooooo much information, not enough concise information to my particular issue when I need help from Microsoft, but I really feel it's pretty low laying arguement to say you can't get any support from Microsoft, I would then argue you haven't been able to find the huge fountain of help they blast at you when you hold up your hand.

Windows 95, Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 2000, WIndows XP, Windows Server 2003, and now the up and coming release of Windows Vista. I think Microsoft has a history of offering new technology on a fairly regular schedule, also providing updates and service packs in the interim.

Microsoft doesn't stagnate or they wouldn't be competitive, they wouldn't be the best and they wouldn't sit on top. You simplify a complex and huge company with a insulting generalization of their successful business.

The people posting in this thread for the most part are more advanced users it seems that would prefer a product more targeted to their level of computer use. I think Microsoft has a very large audience to serve and strives to fulfill all the things needed by their consumers, I mean why wouldn't they want to? It's a win for the consumer, it's a win for the company.

New features are not innovations?

Well. Hm. I suppose, technically speaking, not necessarily. They're still things you can't get from any other OS.

I'm not going to argue about this widget nonsense but really - if you are trying to tell me that an OS that has not changed at all apart from bugfixes and spyware since it was released five or so years ago is technically equivalent to one that was released last year, because of some Microsoft magic, I'm just going to laugh.

(NB I use both XP and OS X on a daily basis - at least I use XP when I'm at work, not right now.)

People buy Macs to avoid Windows. That does not mean that OS X is a competitor to Windows in the OS market, it means that Macs + OS X are competitors to PCs + Windows in the computer market. (And not a very good one.)

That is very much making the assumption that nobody could stagnate and still make money. They certainly can, if they have a massive OEM-based monopoly. As long as people say "welll everybody else is using Windows so I need to as well" - and they offer huge discounts to governments and schools etc to maintain that - they don't need development, improvement or technical superiority to get the win.

Microsoft has not sat idly by for the past five years. The .net framework is now in its 3rd incarnation, there have been 3 releases of Windows Media Player (version 11 is quite nice, especially with the new Urge music service), Windows Movie Maker was updated to version 2 and is a useful tool for casual moviemaking (and free). DirectX has been updated twice and will have a significant upgrade with version 10 - these updates have been to keep up with cutting edge gaming hardware. Windows Desktop Search is in its 3rd incarnation. Microsoft has made two significant new versions of Windows XP in that 5 years - the Tablet PC version has beautiful handwriting recognition that I use daily, and Windows Media Center is in its second incarnation and has fantastic multimedia features.

So I am not sitting here on a 5 year old version of Windows XP - Windows Media Center 2005 is 2 years old, and has been updated to add new features and also integration with my XBOX 360. Microsoft also added signficant security enhancements in SP2, including a completely revamped firewall. So no, it is not the same OS it was 5 years ago - it has evolved, and also has a wealth of 3rd party software to add additional functionality if needed. Hardly a stagnant OS from a company resting on its laurels.

Good points Cristiano.

<propaganda>
I run Gentoo Linux on my AMD64. It runs better than Windows 64, since my programs actually work. Oh! And I haven't paid a dime for software since installing it. All legal software, too.
</propaganda>

Seriously though. There are many misconceptions about 'nix, including the constant snipe of "none of my programs will work!"

This is actually only half true. Wine has gotten to the point where roughly 75% of windows executables (for Win32 no less!) work just fine natively running on my AMD64 system. For the remaining percentage, there are pretty good alternatives, including Konqueror (for Windows Explorer), Firefox (for IE), Gaim (for messenger clients), OpenOffice (for Office), Mplayer (for Windows Media Player/Quicktime), and so on and so forth.

And yes. You're screwed if you want most DirectX games.



There is one true thing about switching, though. It's not easy to do.


Most flavors of 'nix software, Linux in particular, suck. Really suck. Badly. Of the good flavors, most try to "be your friend" by installing a bunch of shit that you don't need. And a few just don't like to work.

To install Gentoo on here, I had to go through a day or two of figuring out how to install it all.... at command line. To their credit, they're working on a graphical install, but the latest release of that crashes before completion.

The reason more people don't use Linux or BSD isn't that the software is crappy. It's the initial hurdle of getting the thing installed properly, then figuring out the new commands. Once it works, software keeps on working. Getting it on there still requires the scary command line.


Until it gets past that stage, it's seriously not a viable competitor in the commercial market. And given the ethos that goes with the software, that's like pulling teeth.

What? Is that *it*? A few slight mods to WMP and WMM (and the former is still shit, though the latter is okay) and mods to DirectX that nobody notices? And perhaps it's not so stupidly virus-prone as it used to be? Oh come on. I'm not a platform advocate but if that's what innovation is supposed to be over five bloody years, count me out.

Actually, there's no doubt that the software has evolved to some extent. To their credit, staying on top of bug fixes and vulnerabilities in what is "the most popular OS, evar" is no trivial task.

And yet, Microsoft's business model has not evolved in at least ten years. Which is why it's been losing out on its internet business more and more in favor of Google and LAMP.

Really, please elaborate on the earth shattering innovations added to the MacOS in the same time period. Face it, you are just an anti-Windows zealot, so no matter what anyone says, you will dismiss it. Windows has not sat stagnant for five years. Windows Media Player 11 is hardly shit - it is getting rave reviews, and is definitely a superior app to iTunes. Again, whatever you spell out about MacOS - it has cost $500+ for the same "innovations" that are available in Windows - there is not a single feature that the MacOS has that there is not equivalent software for. If you say "but but but it's in the OS", then my answer is that supposedly bundling stuff in the OS is supposed to be evil.

You're comparing lemons to limes soley on the basis of color. There really isn't that much difference.

OSX 10.4.6 is not a whole new OS... It's just the last version, with a few more futures. And you get the privledge of paying for the whole new OS in one go. Macintosh hasn't had a "new OS" since X was released.

Microsoft, by comparison, releases the updates as they happen - as Cris mentioned, updates to DirectX, .net, SP1 and even more importantly SP2 (Not a trivial upgrade), Windows Defender, etc. No, we don't get a new version of windows yearly - and, in turn, we don't have to shell out 130 bucks every year for the newest version.

We'll have Vista one of these days. Let us know when OS11 comes out, ok?

*note, I actually like Macs. I wish I could afford one, sadly, however, I can't. If Macintosh wouldnt' be f-ing anal about it, I'd just buy OSX and put it on my intel box... but nooooooooo... Macs using my windows? Fine. Me using their precious OSX? WE CAN'T HAVE THAT!

*snort*

good luck with the ad hominem, if you're going to use it I won't bother

wow thats funny i have a very similar story

i called rolex and complained that the watch i bought off some guy on the street was a fake.
he promised me it was genuine! they werent interested in helping me either =( go figure