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Cheers. I'd say Vista introduced or changed—for the better—a ton of Windows paradigms, most of which still endure. User account control, dwm.exe and the WDDM,

Cheers. I'd say Vista introduced or changed—for the better—a ton of Windows paradigms, most of which still endure. User account control, dwm.exe and the WDDM, improved user profiles, the ribbon UI, and more. Vista had the most pervasive changes to Windows in the past two decades, from UI and UX to fundamental OS primitives, APIs, and syscalls. Disdain levelled at Vista is unfair—it was a heavyweight OS that needed better hardware than was really commonplace at the time. As for money now being the end game... I have no words. The stupid Weather app (sorry, no, WebView2 wrapper) on Windows 10 and 11 is exasperating.

lttlrck 1y ago
I ran Vista on a 17" Dell Inspiron. Core 2 Duo. It ran magnificently. Sometimes it seems like I was the only person that had that experience...
anonymars 1y ago
I feel like I gave up less compatibility for Vista than for Windows 11, and for...what?
miladyincontrol 1y ago
What it really needed was more than the intel 915 all too many prebuilts cheaped out using, which intel strong-armed MS into certifying as 'vista ready' when it absolutely wasnt.
- lynguist 1y ago
  What is the Intel 915?
  - dijit 1y ago
    a very underpowered integrated graphics for Intel CPUs (core2 and first-generation i-series CPUs had them). It’s also known as “Intel GMA”, if that helps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA
  - anonymars 1y ago
    An underpowered integrated graphics that was ubiquitous at the time but not really up to the task. Microsoft relented to Intel and allowed it to be classified as "Vista capable" despite not being able to run WDDM. This is a decent writeup of the situation: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/microsoft-e-mails-reveal-intel-pressure-over-vista/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/microsoft-e-mails-re...
    - anonymars 1y ago
      I think this offers some interesting thought experiments in [tech] leadership: * what would you have done in Jim Allchin's position? He disagreed once finding out but ultimately trusted his team's judgement and stood by their decision (isn't that exactly the manager you want to work for?) Yet, look at the results * hypothetically how do you think Steve Jobs would have handled it, by contrast? * but Windows is a whole ecosystem with many stakeholders, while Apple is not, so the balancing act between Intel and HP is much more delicate. (Apple ultimately ditched Intel, right? But could Microsoft?) (edit: clarify some wording)
      - delta_p_delta_x 1y ago
        Ditching or otherwise snubbing Intel would've been unthinkable in that time period; they were the undisputed performance kings on the desktop. Apple themselves had just moved to Intel, and made a big deal out of it, too.
      - dijit 1y ago
        I’ve been in a similar situation. We were promised that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation of hardware would be significantly more powerful than it ended up being. The amount of backlash we received because the quality of the final product we produced was lower than what we showed to the public was insane and continues to this day. For context, I worked at Ubisoft on Tom Clancy’s The Division. this was the same period where watch dogs released. I think we did the right thing, not because we chose to and that we were being an altruistic; but because we were forced to- by the first party console manufacturers as part of certification requirements. If you release something that you know will perform poorly, that’s on you. It doesn’t matter if you’re Intel in this situation or if your Microsoft in this situation they are both equally guilty of allowing it to happen. How do you assign blame in that situation? You don’t. they both should’ve done better. as soon as Microsoft realised that Windows Vista would perform poorly on current generation hardware that the majority of the population had they should’ve worked to downgrade the visual elements and optimise the bloat away even at the cost of features. When Intel realised that the 98% desktop market leader was going to release something that had graphical intensity requirements, they should have put more emphasis and effort into producing higher quality graphics processing capabilities- it’s not like Windows Vista had a short time it was in development for many many years
SlowTao 1y ago
Vista is the technical foundation Windows has been built on ever since. It can be praised for that at least.

lttlrck 1y ago

I ran Vista on a 17" Dell Inspiron. Core 2 Duo. It ran magnificently. Sometimes it seems like I was the only person that had that experience...

anonymars 1y ago

I feel like I gave up less compatibility for Vista than for Windows 11, and for...what?

miladyincontrol 1y ago

What it really needed was more than the intel 915 all too many prebuilts cheaped out using, which intel strong-armed MS into certifying as 'vista ready' when it absolutely wasnt.

lynguist 1y ago
What is the Intel 915?
- dijit 1y ago
  a very underpowered integrated graphics for Intel CPUs (core2 and first-generation i-series CPUs had them). It’s also known as “Intel GMA”, if that helps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA
- anonymars 1y ago
  An underpowered integrated graphics that was ubiquitous at the time but not really up to the task. Microsoft relented to Intel and allowed it to be classified as "Vista capable" despite not being able to run WDDM. This is a decent writeup of the situation: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/microsoft-e-mails-reveal-intel-pressure-over-vista/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/microsoft-e-mails-re...
  - anonymars 1y ago
    I think this offers some interesting thought experiments in [tech] leadership: * what would you have done in Jim Allchin's position? He disagreed once finding out but ultimately trusted his team's judgement and stood by their decision (isn't that exactly the manager you want to work for?) Yet, look at the results * hypothetically how do you think Steve Jobs would have handled it, by contrast? * but Windows is a whole ecosystem with many stakeholders, while Apple is not, so the balancing act between Intel and HP is much more delicate. (Apple ultimately ditched Intel, right? But could Microsoft?) (edit: clarify some wording)
    - delta_p_delta_x 1y ago
      Ditching or otherwise snubbing Intel would've been unthinkable in that time period; they were the undisputed performance kings on the desktop. Apple themselves had just moved to Intel, and made a big deal out of it, too.
    - dijit 1y ago
      I’ve been in a similar situation. We were promised that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation of hardware would be significantly more powerful than it ended up being. The amount of backlash we received because the quality of the final product we produced was lower than what we showed to the public was insane and continues to this day. For context, I worked at Ubisoft on Tom Clancy’s The Division. this was the same period where watch dogs released. I think we did the right thing, not because we chose to and that we were being an altruistic; but because we were forced to- by the first party console manufacturers as part of certification requirements. If you release something that you know will perform poorly, that’s on you. It doesn’t matter if you’re Intel in this situation or if your Microsoft in this situation they are both equally guilty of allowing it to happen. How do you assign blame in that situation? You don’t. they both should’ve done better. as soon as Microsoft realised that Windows Vista would perform poorly on current generation hardware that the majority of the population had they should’ve worked to downgrade the visual elements and optimise the bloat away even at the cost of features. When Intel realised that the 98% desktop market leader was going to release something that had graphical intensity requirements, they should have put more emphasis and effort into producing higher quality graphics processing capabilities- it’s not like Windows Vista had a short time it was in development for many many years

SlowTao 1y ago

Vista is the technical foundation Windows has been built on ever since. It can be praised for that at least.