I have never used Vista. I think the minimum hardware requirements are too high for me. Worse than that, I don't even like XP because it's a pain to deal with activation and an even greater pain to back it up. I've never figured out how to back up Windows XP. That said, I don't use XP very often. It's annoying when programs like TurboTax don't work, and it's annoying when sites like nbc.com don't work, but CentOS fills my needs for the most part. Freedos opens up even more software, but there's the problem that getting a hold of commercial dos software legally is difficult where I haven't seen very many OSS projects for freedos.
People are saying I hope Windows 7 will be better. Have any of these people ever checked out http://badvista.fsf.org? If activation isn't annoying enough, try digital rights management that can be hacked so that you can't use your own media that you created yourself. I've heard that there are still driver issues in Vista. The word on what OEM software has become in Vista land disgusts me. You should always be allowed to back up your installation media as many times as you want in any operating environment you want to. Windows Vista raised the operating requirements for Windows, I suppose you need a dual core computer now. Am I the only one who doesn't think this is particularly appropriate? Is Windows 7 going to magically bring Vista to older computers? I doubt it. I doubt that Microsoft is going to give up on making it impossible to back up installation media and I doubt that Microsoft will give up on forcing people to activate their copy of Windows. Now is the time to send a message to Microsoft that the abuse must end and the only way to do that is to demand a refund when you get a computer with Windows Vista or Windows 7 installed. Microsoft has no business denying people the right to back up their installation media, it has no business forcing people to activate software that it will later cease to support, it has no business playing media cop severely impacting performance. Free operating systems are getting to the point where you can get along without the latest version of Windows. Thing is, people have to actively abandon Windows, a.k.a. demand a refund, before Microsoft will get the message that it's business practices are unethical and unacceptable. It is also necessary to boycott software that requires Windows because it is not written to be portable to other OS's. Microsoft Windows is a monopoly OS because people allow it to be. If the public in general would stop accepting programs that need Microsoft Windows, Microsoft could not maintain it's monopoly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco. 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today. Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
