XP may not be perfect, but it's been stably mediocre for a long time now. Think of how big an improvement over Win2000 it is, or how much better W2K was than the feeble mess known as Win98. If MicroSoft keeps going, in five or ten years they'll have an operating system that's up to the demands of what people are doing with computers in 2008. Give them some credit. (A $300 limit and a high interest rate, of course.)

ORIGINAL: Jessie Sammler

XP may not be perfect, but it's been stably mediocre for a long time now. Think of how big an improvement over Win2000 it is, or how much better W2K was than the feeble mess known as Win98. If MicroSoft keeps going, in five or ten years they'll have an operating system that's up to the demands of what people are doing with computers in 2008. Give them some credit. (A $300 limit and a high interest rate, of course.)

Unfortunately or fortunately I can remember running MS-DOS which was rock solid. Yeah they have made progress but the code is so much Swiss cheese. While I like the looks, feel and cool factor fo some of the things that Vista offers I am sometimes befuddled by the lack of consistency in how the OS functions from box to box. XP Pro is better than XP home but again there are somethings that can only be fixed with registry hacks.

Hey Jessie are you insinuating a possibility that Microsoft may need a hand out from the US treasury as well?

Which reminds me....


Pistolpete was walking down the road one day carrying a pig.

As he was passing a bus stop, someone asked "Where on earth did you get that obnoxious, filthy, horrible, fat, smelly animal from?"

"I won him in a raffle" the pig replied.

---

Pete's friend came round to help him paint his house.

"Pete" enquired his pal, "Why on earth are you wearing your new sou'wester and your denim jacket to do such a mucky job like painting?"

"Well duh!" said Pete, "look here on the tin...... it says For best results, put on two coats".

Pete's friend came round for dinner and saw Pete in the kitchen, pointing a video camera at an oven-ready Lasagna.

'What are you doing Pete?'

''Preparing dinner of course'' said Pete testily. ''It says on the packet, 'remove cardboard sleeve and film lid'''

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Pete got a decorating job at a posh house and was asked to paint the porch.

After an hour he went to the owner to ask for payment.

''Finished already? That was quick''

''Yes'' said Pete proudly. ''Except, it wasn't a Porche, it was a Mercedes''

ORIGINAL: Doc_Hollingsworth

Unfortunately or fortunately I can remember running MS-DOS which was rock solid. Yeah they have made progress but the code is so much Swiss cheese. While I like the looks, feel and cool factor fo some of the things that Vista offers I am sometimes befuddled by the lack of consistency in how the OS functions from box to box. XP Pro is better than XP home but again there are somethings that can only be fixed with registry hacks.

Good point, Doc. From the industry I work in, there's a great example of a company that had a good, solid, stable product that ran on proprietary processors using compiled code. There was no GUI; it depended on literacy of its programming language to write line code, and it lacked some abilities that people were starting to ask for. So, they came out with something new that was programmed with a Windows application with an elaborate GUI. It was easy for the novice to get into, but it was flaky as hell and unreliable. End-users were getting mad and wanting the system ripped out. So, the vendor had to come up with something new that had the functionality and GUI-ness of the flaky system but the hard-core robustness of the old compiled system. That's what MicroSoft needs -- Vista pretty, DOS stable.

ORIGINAL: Jessie Sammler

Good point, Doc. From the industry I work in, there's a great example of a company that had a good, solid, stable product that ran on proprietary processors using compiled code. There was no GUI; it depended on literacy of its programming language to write line code, and it lacked some abilities that people were starting to ask for. So, they came out with something new that was programmed with a Windows application with an elaborate GUI. It was easy for the novice to get into, but it was flaky as hell and unreliable. End-users were getting mad and wanting the system ripped out. So, the vendor had to come up with something new that had the functionality and GUI-ness of the flaky system but the hard-core robustness of the old compiled system. That's what MicroSoft needs -- Vista pretty, DOS stable.

I think the only way they could get the stability is to buy Sun Microsystems and use X-Windows Solaris compiled for the x64 chip. Apple's Mac commercial of the Microsoft throwing all those dollars at marketing rather than fixing is pretty accurate, I think.

Do you think Doc has a copy of Cakewalk 1.0? Didn't that run on DOS?

Apple's Mac commercial of the Microsoft throwing all those dollars at marketing rather than fixing is pretty accurate, I think.

I think you're right, though Apple still come across as a bunch of smug little ***** thanks to that Justin Long character.

ORIGINAL: pistolpete

Do you think Doc has a copy of Cakewalk 1.0? Didn't that run on DOS?

Not if you owned it

I wonder if they ever fixed that inefficient code...