Vista incompatibility

[swak]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/...0&pageNumber=4
I think that windows is losing it's universal compatibility advantage. Not much of an advantage if you have to pay for it. I don't know if it's true or not but I've heard that vista will be the last version that will have inherent backwards compatibility. The next version of windows will need an emulator to be backwards compatible just like the move from os 9 to os x. I don't know if this is true but it makes sense. It is creating a major overhead for software to be able to work for all versions because they come out with better ways of doing things but they still have to support the old ways of doing it because of backwards compatibility. The biggest advantage that windows has is the amount of users it has. If mac had that many then the programs would target mac more. This vista affair will switch a lot of people off from using vista because of all of the demands. It may be annoying to not be able to use old software on the new os but in the end it's better.

I suppose that this doesn't go here but I wasn't sure where else to put it.

[gerbick]

I guess you didn't make the switch from OS 9.x to OSX... and how each version of OSX had programs that wouldn't work in previous versions... let alone the Intel from PowerPC switch.

It happens. Backward legacy will be Windows downfall. They truly need to start anew.

But coordinate it better.

[swak]

If you would read my footer you would notice that I'm using mac os 10.4. I there have been a few programs that I've tried that I've noticed don't work. One that I can think of is Pillars of Garendall. I remember playing that and recently I've wanted to play it but I couldn't because it no longer works. What do you mean by "But coordinate it better."

[gerbick]

I read your footer.

I don't know your history. Your footer has no mention of your history.

By coordinate it better, it took almost 2 years to get Photoshop onto OSX natively. Now, it's taking almost that same amount of time to get Photoshop natively onto OSX Intel. And that's with Apple working with Adobe to get it done properly.

Microsoft needs to break backward x86/DOS/16-bit compatibility and move very forward, much like the Apple OSX movement was away from OS 9. But do coordinate it with the major suppliers of drivers, hardware, software, and get away from legacy support. If they don't... they might deliver another stagnant product like Vista that reflects all that's wrong in the Windows world - one I'm not quite sure the serious mac-o-phile would know about honestly...

Legacy support shouldn't always be made priority one. New hardware might need new software.

That's what I mean by coordinate. Coordinate with other vendors/software programmers.

[swak]

I just didn't quite get this statement: "I guess you didn't make the switch from OS 9.x to OSX." I've been a mac user for my whole life. It's just that I haven't used a large variety of software. In fact, the computer I'm typing this on came from the pre-osx era (I think os 9). I agree with you about the coordinate but you gotta admit, with vista it's similar to the os9 to the osx except at least apple wasn't lying about the compatibility. Unless of course I missed something.

[gerbick]

Admit it, native OSX apps were slow to show up - it took 2 years for Photoshop 7 OSX, otherwise you had to run it in Classic mode.

And you're missing just about everything I'm saying.

Allow me to list it out... simply:

Apple broke compatibility with the move from OS9 to OSX.
Apple broke compatibility in their move from PowerPC to Intel.
Apple changed their entire direction with the new OS, OSX in 2000.
OSX does not support legacy applications from OS9 and previous natively... Classic doesn't count.
Microsoft needs to do the same thing.
Microsoft needs to break legacy support.
Microsoft needs to stop trying to run software from 1993 on a machine in 2007.
Microsoft needs to cut legacy support, move forward with their OS... much like Apple did with OSX.

About you being a lifetime Mac user; means nothing in regards to this other than it furthers the idea that you might not know more about the Windows world, but that's not what is important. In fact, your footer, your prior usage, none of that is important.

What's important is that Apple broke legacy support with OSX. Microsoft didn't with Vista... the incompatibilities that people are seeing are a sign of what's bad/wrong in the Microsoft camp. How in the world will you develop an OS for over 5 years and not have compatibility out of the box? That's Microsoft's dilemma... or the start of it.

Problem is though... when you break legacy support, you should have upward support within the same OS branch... something that Apple neglects or uses to force OS updates.

Case in point... Apple Motion. It forced an update to an OS that supported CoreImage, CoreAudio, CoreVideo presentation layers... so that was a 10.3 and higher update that was needed for that.

They could have gone the Microsoft way, extend that framework (.NET) to previous versions in the same branch - so to OSX 10.0.0 to 10.4.8 - and go that route... but Apple breaks a lot of compatibility with each and every major revision (from 10.2 to 10.3)... so Apple isn't a saint either.

Breaking legacy support is a gamble... but Apple had to make that switch... OS9 was a dead end.

Vista just came out. It took some years for OSX to get Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator, Flash all native OSX. Same type of growing pains... just that Microsoft should have coordinated the move with the software vendors in regards to Vista to shorten that time.

[swak]

Ok, I see. It's just seems to me that a big point in windows is the fact that it can run those old apps. And now with vista it's a huge departure. Apple spends 1 year to get an update out and and Microsoft takes 5 years to come out with what seems to be something that is meant to be catching up to the features that tiger already has. The did put in new stuff but they placed a lot of what tiger has in there. And yet for some reason Vista takes a lot of resources. I'm running tiger on a computer of 640 megs of ram and 500 mhz. I did a test (I took out 512 mgs of ram so that both the mac and pc were the same in memory) and it seems to run about the same as the pc that had over 2 ghz in speed. So I don't thing that tiger's gui effects take more resources. I know that vista has that one thing to make stuff load fast. Correct me if I'm wrong. It just seems that Microsoft did a lot of catching up and yet didn't do a great job about it. Their os is resource consuming where as mac os x runs about the same as xp.

[gerbick]

And now with vista it's a huge departure.

Quite wrong. It's not as radical as people are saying.

Apple spends 1 year to get an update out and and Microsoft takes 5 years to come out...

Before Vista... not true on Microsoft's part.

And yet for some reason Vista takes a lot of resources. I'm running tiger on a computer of 640 megs of ram and 500 mhz.

I'm running on a machine with 768mb and a processor when it's not plugged in - Pentium M laptop - that drops down to 700mhz... and honestly Vista out of the box is very resource hungry. It's running things that shouldn't be running, Windows has historically been out of the box running everything... after trimming it down, doing standard adminstration and resource allocation on the machine, I'm using less memory and processes than when I was running WinXP.

I'd like to easily replace/update the Apache in OSX without having to carve things out.

I think your experience is a bit lacking and your belief in a lot of the hype/anti-hype of Vista. A lot of it is quite wrong.

And for the record, I really don't like Vista.

[swak]

Fair enough. I'll stop this flaim wars now before it takes off.

[gerbick]

It's not a flame war. I'm just correcting some inaccuracies wherever I see them. I'm not a Windows fan by far... but a lot of the Vista backlash is in the wrong direction(s).

It's not as much of a revolutionary step as much as it's an evolutionary step. Vista is like Windows XP.4, not a new level like OSX was when it compared to OS9.

[asheep_uk]

I don't think Microsoft even try to make old progams work with their new operating systems. The amount of old games I have that just out-right refuse to run in XP is staggering.

[SJT]

Funnily enough, half the reason they're in the mess they are now is because they've hung on to the old codebase for backward compatibility...

[swak]

It seems that they're building an unstable tower. The last one they were working on toppled so they had to start over and not put in so much.