MS Vista versus Mac OS X Comparison

[miju]

Please share your experiences. I'm sick of XP and I love Mac OS X but Vista is rather pretty. Which is better in your opinion?

[Col. Matarrese]

if this starts another OS war, I'm outta here...

Personally, I'll always choose UNIX, and therefore between the two, I choose OS X seeing as it's got Darwin under the hood.

Vista is no more then XP but shiny

[Col. Shadow Quinn]

if this starts another OS war, I'm outta here...

Personally, I'll always choose UNIX, and therefore between the two, I choose OS X seeing as it's got Darwin under the hood.

Vista is no more then XP but shiny

There are no viruses known for the Mac.

[rarocks24]

Please share your experiences. I'm sick of XP and I love Mac OS X but Vista is rather pretty. Which is better in your opinion?

Mac OS X, you can always run Windows too on the new Macs for things like gaming,

[Morbo]

Vista copied the look and feel and applications from OSX.
but, its still windows. it still has viruses, and security flaws and adware and spyware.

also, IMPORTANT: the only way you can run the Aeroglass theme on Vista, is if you've got some massive beef under the hood - both in RAM, and a dedicated video card.
otherwise, it'll look normal.

[Col. Matarrese]

there's also that rather odd exploit with the voice recognition you should watch out for if you're using Vista

[Agent_Dark]

also, IMPORTANT: the only way you can run the Aeroglass theme on Vista, is if you've got some massive beef under the hood - both in RAM, and a dedicated video card.
otherwise, it'll look normal.

Yet it has no discernable impact on performance.

At any rate, stay away from Vista for the time being. It's a first release of a major operating system - there's bound to be all sorts of bugs and exploits. Wait until SP1 comes out for it. In the mean time, XP is more than fine for a windows environment.

[uknesvuinng]

Yet it has no discernable impact on performance.

At any rate, stay away from Vista for the time being. It's a first release of a major operating system - there's bound to be all sorts of bugs and exploits. Wait until SP1 comes out for it. In the mean time, XP is more than fine for a windows environment.

Heh, forget XP. I'm still using Windows 2000. It works well enough for everything I do.

[Skydiver]

that's what i plan to do. With anything microsoft anymore, they're so bound and determined to mimick anyone else, and concentrate seemingly solely on mimickry, that everything they put out is flawed. they worry so much about making it 'similar to....' that they don't make it stable and secure.

anything they put out i give it a minimum of 6 months to a year before i consider installing it.

and last i heard, the press release for the release of vista said 'we're working on service pack one', which means to me 'yeah, we know it's full of flaws, but we had to hit a deadline so we released a buggy piece of junk to make the deadline and we'll make it stable later.'

[Jeffer]

I am running Vista (Home premium) i am Dual booting (With XP) ftm and moving stuff over one thing at a time. It works great other then Third parties needing to come out with Drivers (not Ms's fault). Vista is the only Windows to actually have 1000's of ppl beta test so the first version is quite stable. I haven't had one blue screen yet and i had lots with XP.

For the exploit in the Voice software the person would have to make a Mp3 of what they wanted your comp to do. you would have to have the VR Listening, your mic would have to be pulged in and would have to be near the speakers for it to work. And after using the VR for some simple things there is NO WAY it would ever work. you need to annunciate very well and even then it makes big mistakes.

the single best feature in Vista is the active search bar in the start menu it searches everything. so no more of that long search with that Dog.

when i first got it i was running a 1.8ghz CPU 1G of ram and a 128mb vid card


since then i have only upgraded my CPU to a 2.2ghz dual core but the 1.8 was more then sufficient to run vista.

[Col. Matarrese]

I am running Vista i am Dual booting (With XP) ftm and moving stuff over one thing at a time. It works great other then Third parties neededing to come out with Drivers (not Ms's fault). Vista is the only Windows to acually have 1000's of ppl beta test so the first version is quite stable. I haven't had one blue screen yet and i had lots with XP.

For the exploit in the Vocie software the person would have to make a Mp3 of what they wanted your comp to do. you would have to have the VR Lisiening, your mic would have to be pulged in and would have to be near the speakers for it to work.

as most speakers on Windows boxes are...apparently, the voice recognition is on by default, so...One should also remember that this exploit is more geared toward notebook machines where the speakers and mic are in close proximity and are generally turned on. Desktop machines are far less likely to fall victim to this problem.

the single best feature in Vista is the active search bar in the start menu it searches everything. so no more of that long seach with that Dog.

as OS X and many Linux distros have had for YEARS. As others have said...

Spoiler:

Have fun!

[Jeffer]

as most speakers on Windows boxes are...apparently, the voice recognition is on by default, so...One should also remember that this exploit is more geared toward notebook machines where the speakers and mic are in close proximity and are generally turned on. Desktop machines are far less likely to fall victim to this problem.

the VR is not on by default you have to turn it on. It can be set up to work on start up but even then it isn't on you have to say start listening for it to start and it isn't smart enough yet to be able to listen well enough to an MP3 playing over the speakers.

Given that 90% of the world runs Windows in one form or another the need to work out a lot more stuff.

Which is also why there aren't many Viruses that work on Mac (as with Linx) not enough ppl use it to make it with the hackers time.

With Windows Firewall and Windows defender it is the most spy ware and add ware safe version of windows yet

[Col. Matarrese]

dude, do you like WORK for MS? The MP3 exploit has been seen in the wild at least once, I think.

Unix (and by kernel extension OS X and Linux) isn't a bunch of security through obscurity mumbo jumbo. Unix made it to the web before Windows did, and therefore defeats several known issues with windows such as a poorly designed network stack and the use of "root" access. Windows makes it damn near impossible to run as anything BUT root. OS X and ALL linux distros let you do this easily with little hassle. True, Windows is targeted more because of its popularity, but other little tidbits include the fact that the reliance Windows traditionally puts on the Internet Explorer engine breeds problems with Javascript remote code execution and VML (vector markup language) RCE. MS' incredibly stupid "patch tuesday" schedule also allows for COUNTLESS Zero-Day Exploits. It's a combination of all these things and MANY more that make Windows in any form the least secure, least reliable operating systems EVER. I'd love to go 12 rounds about who's right, and who's wrong, but Unix is proven to be better than windows on many counts and you don't have the evidence to tell me to stand down. Now I've got alternate OSes to evangelize...

[Jeffer]

Actually Vista is the First OS from MS to NOT run you in Admin mode. Also vista has a completey redesigned network stack

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...d_technologies

In Vista's defense, Paul Thurrott argues that many of the features that have Mac OS X counterparts or similarities (such as Windows Search to Mac OS X's Spotlight) have been in early alpha versions of Vista or demonstrated in prototypes more than a year before Apple included the features in Mac OS X v10.4.[50] Some Vista technologies, such as Windows Desktop Search, were released as free add-ons to Windows XP before their inclusion in shipping versions of Mac OS X.

[Col. Matarrese]

please, paul therott is the host of a WINDOWS podcast!

although, you are right, I forgot about that in Vista, you aren't root all the time. RC1 Should've taught me that much...

[Morbo]

as a subscriber to Wired magazine, I feel I must post this (from the last issue):

Wired: Improved security and parental controls keep your machine and kids safer. Many versions feature built-in Media Center functionality. With Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft's browser finally enters the 21st century. Customizable Start menu offers quick access to your favorite files.

Tired: A step up from XP, but not a giant one. Reverts to basic (non-Aero) mode unless your graphics card is bleeding-edge. One gig of RAM is needed for snappy performance. Some security enhancements included, but additional protection from viruses and malware is a must.

[Col. Matarrese]

Yeah, also, does anyone know about this nVIDIA driver issue? My graphics card didn't do squat with RC1 and I'm not gonna upgrade until it works (it's for review purposes, mmkay?)

[Jeffer]

Basically the nvidia drivers suck and don't work right while ATI's work great. there are actually some ppl making a class action lawsuit against Nvidia about this.

I have an Nvidia card

Playing Guild Wars in XP i would get about 50-60Frames per second

In Vista i get 20-30

[Pharaoh Atem]

Please share your experiences. I'm sick of XP and I love Mac OS X but Vista is rather pretty. Which is better in your opinion?

I would trade my vista in for a mac any day vista is cool but it still has trouble running certain programs ....very annoying.

mac cost to much for me to get one

[miju]

I am thinking about ubuntu 8.04 final release with AWN and CompizFusion - it appears totally awesome and the poor man's version of OS X.