bill gates

The Vista launch event in New York yesterday was an extravaganza. The only real issue was the half-hour of waiting in line outside in the freezing cold, as the line of press was literally around the block. I bet every tech journalist in the tri-state area was there.

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They had a group of percussionists for a warm-up, then cleared the stage for a second group who only played a single song before Gates came up. Talk about fast stage work.

bill gates bill gates bill gates

Bill Gates not only talked about the OS features, he also spent a lot of time talking about how much time was spent testing and evaluating Vista. I always wonder when I see him if he will ever spend any of his billions on some nice clothes.

steve ballmer steve ballmer  

Ballmer was his usual exuberant self, and continued to stress how much testing and evaluation was involved in the Vista development while talking about the new features for integrated media.

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Microsoft VP Mike Sievert gave a live demo of Office 2007 functionality as well as a live demo of cross-platform head-to-head UNO  gaming between a Vista machine and an XBox. 

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There were also demos set up all around the reception area from the various Microsoft Vista partners, each showing a different facet of Vista from gaming to suport of portable multimedia devices.

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As a nice touch, Bill and Steve brought out one of the many Vista Beta families brought to the event to use a touchscreen button to officially “launch” Vista. They also brought out a Kevin Rollins of Dell, Tom Bradley of HP, Hector Ruiz of AMD and Sean Maloney of Intel and gave each of them a framed CD-ROM set of Vista Ultimate to commemorate the launch.



  1. GregA says:

    Let me be the first to say.

    DO NOT DO VISTA UPGRADE!!!

    It bricked my computer.

  2. Mark Derail says:

    #31 GregA — OMG ROTFL

    I posted so many times that most PC users are cheap. Another fine example, instead of buying a separate hard disk and a full version of Vista….
    … and all those posts about driver issues! C’mon, you’re pulling our leg, right?

  3. ArianeB says:

    Toms Hardware has run a whole slew of benchmarks on XP vs Vista.

    XP wins almost every one, although the differences were mostly negligable. The important thing to note on the benchmarks is that they were done without Aero, so your vista speeds with Aero will be even slower. As gamers would say Open GL on Vista is “teh suxorz”.

    http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/

  4. GregA says:

    The install was going great. I was even using it. A little message poped up, your updates are ready to download. It found drivers for everything (sound card and tv card) that it didn’t find during the install. After the update, it wanted to reboot.

    One Ellen Fleiss later, boop boop bee boop, and I was like, my paper is gone. It was a really good paper.

    Oddly enough, I think it was hozed by the xp restore partition. But damn. Given the number of compaq computers out there, and the ease with which it totally hozed my computer, I bet we hear more about this in the coming days.

    I have encountered this once before on this brand of computer… I think the solution is to get it to boot xp setup, and nuke the restore partition.

    I will definately post more about my progress.

  5. GregA says:

    ArianeB,

    I take issue with that notion. While I was using vista, the Aero interface is very matter o’ factly faster than the traditional interface. But then, I have a very modern video card.

    At this point however, that is not saying much at all.

  6. Mark Derail says:

    GregA – scary! You had a backup of your files right?
    You might have to boot on your XP CD, reformat, reinstall, then once XP boots, install the Vista upgrade.

    A programmer friend upgraded his XP with Vista Ultimate, and boy does he regret it. I had told him to use a separate hard disk.
    He can’t go back, and wishes he could. He back upped his files, but didn’t want to do a 60 gig Ghost.

    Now he’s got 20+ hours of reinstalling to do.

  7. SN says:

    36. “I take issue with that notion”

    The point ArianeB was making is that Areo runs all the time. Even when you’re playing a 3d game, in the background Areo is running and putting a strain on even a “very modern video card.”

    Why Microsoft chose to keep something running that you cannot see and are not using is beyond me. But there is no doubt that Vista and Areo are not good for gaming.

    Of course Microsoft will “fix” that problem by ensuring that all of the hottest games are Vista only.

  8. Jägermeister says:

    Wonder how many 3D flips it takes to run down a laptop battery.

  9. tallwookie says:

    #29 – let me contact my ppls at microsoft and i’ll letcha know how much you’ll be getting screwed out of though your “friends”

  10. OhForTheLoveOf says:

    #30 – Now, don’t go thinking that the background music from C+C was I’ve Got the Power.

    I won’t.

    Because the 1 hit wonder that penned that classic went by the name “Snap”.

  11. GregA says:

    Vista First post!

    But damn! What a pain in the ass.

    Well, vista start up repair is the bomb. It just seems like I shouldn’t need a tool like start up repair.

  12. Oscar says:

    However fancy the UI may seem to some and comparisons made to OS X. What I really see each time I see Vista is a clone of Sun’s Looking Glass UI which they either licensed or bought.

  13. TJGeezer says:

    43 – Now that’s one I hadn’t seen before. I gotta look that up.

    I have discovered I am just another sheep in the herd. I’ve been learning Linux specifically to get around needing M$ DRM and invasive licensing a couple years ahead. But the hype has given me a strong impulse to rush out and try it for myself.

    Then I read that video cards, TV cards and burner software won’t work at all in Vista. And the impulse to vuy Vista drained right away. I feel cured of an especially bothersome virus. Hallelujah! and all that. Anyway, Linux is more fun.


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