LOL

Vista has been delayed for what... 4 years? Wasn't "Longhorn" supposed to come out in 2003, then in 2005, and then in 2006? And people criticized Sony for its "vaporware".

The broad release is delayed until January because of the time it takes to manufacture and ship machines to retaile but the Vista images used by the big vendors is still scheduled to go out in November. Big direct sales companies like Dell should have a few hundred thousand machines out there for Xmas shoppers but brands dependent on retail sales will have to wait or limit their effort to their most high margin deluxe models.

The determined early adopter with lots of cash will have a Vista Xmas if they want. If I were in Dell's position I'd be looking to arrange a Halo 2 bundle to go with those machines if Bungie is still on schedule to get it done by late November.

And if Vista had shipped as originally scheduled they would be a large contingent complaining that new Windows versions appear too frequently, as if the whole world were expected to adopt it overnight.

Meanwhile, Apple is usually praised for releasing new versions of OS X near annually.

I'm sure PC gamers are devestated they can't play the pinnacle of online gaming that is Halo 2 for another year :(

Unlike MS, Sony's hardware has seemed archaic for about 3 years now. The PS2 seems well outdated these days.

The same cannot be said about XP. Only Mac users enjoy upgrading their OS every year. Businesses and home users that use Windows are more than happy to get their 4-5 years worth out of an OS before they have the stomach to upgrade hardware & software. This is probably the first Delay of Longhorn that anyone actually even cares about. That's mainly due to the fact that recently MS has released Beta's and people have been playing with Vista for some time now.

jon, what the hell are you talking about? The PS2 is outdated these days, but the same cannot be said about WindowsXP? WHAT?!

Outdated compared to what? OSX came out around the same time would you say OSX is outdated? Operating systems are like Cars...Everyone wants a fancy shiny new car but after you purchase one...your more than happy to keep it 4,5,6 years.

Again I say...the world is not clammoring for a Windows update...and IE update yes...but not a windows update. I can't wait till it comes myself but Businesses and most people won't find much reason to upgrade other than a shiny new interface.

Hey, at least every version of OS X makes your computer faster... wish I could say the same about Windows.

I personally would rather several OS updates over a span of 5-6 years and that I can upgrade if I choose to instead of having the same stale OS for 5-6 years and then it's going to require a new computer by the time it comes out.

i've used both beta versions of IE7 and i just downloaded firefox 2.0 alpha and let me tell ya, i could care less about IE. firefox 2.0 is way better than 1.5 and still has IE7 beat by a mile. as far as a new version of windows i'm ready to see what it's got, but at the same time i'm happy running linux

Damn :-(

I was actually going to buy the OS too. Well the good thing though is that it will be one less thing I won't have to worry about buying in the October/November.

The last time I bought an OS was Win98/WinNT for a dual boot like 5-6 years ago.

Anyone know the general price of new Windows Operating Systems when they first come out?

to Jon at #6.

XP is outdated. OS 10.0 came out before XP. Since then Apple has released seperate NEW OSes very different than 10.0 since then. Apple had 10.0 then 10.1 which is a NEW OS and cost money to upgrade. Then 10.2 then 10.3 then 10.4. Each increment was a purchaseable upgrade that was significantly faster and better and had WAY more features than the last. And from a DEV perspective was a complete over haul of OS X as a whole.

So YES Jon XP is outdated. Nothing has changed with that OS except its 2 patches that make it actually slower than the last patch and no new features were added.

Dont muddy the waters with [flame].

Good.

Maybe by the time Vista is out, a GOOD Vista-compatable PC will be rather cheap to buy.

...and all those fancy OS X features are kind of pointless IMO and aren't THAT special b/c a decent PC can do a lot of that stuff.

Dashboard (in Vista btw), the F10/F11/F12 feature can be done with a 3rd party program, the dock bar, etc.

@ MegaWatts

Mac Os X 10.1 Puma was a free update...

Where are these people getting the fact that OSX upgrades are faster? They're not really upgrades anyway, like Vista is to XP. A new Apple OSX upgrade just means new versions of their own software, and more applications built into the OS because a pitiful amount of third party software is available.

Trust me, my Mac Mini runs like a dog when I'm browsing, and it isn't even capable of half the features of Tiger, despite being bought after the OS launch.

It strikes me that this outdated/not-outdated argument is fairly pointless. This is an OS we are talking about, not hardware. There is no practical reason why MS could not gradually implement all the components of Vista as updates/patches to XP. But of course they want to make money. So they have to leave problems and vulnerabilities in XP long enough, and invent pointless 'new' 3D interfaces etc to make us all want to upgrade. Mac users experience this more regularly in the shape of smaller updates, which require a whole new OS to be purchased. Possibly your average Mac user is more financially able to accommodate this. But it is all an artificially created redundancy. It begs the question of what we actually expect an OS to 'do'? If Linux was standardised, stable consistent and easy to use, would we bother with anything else?

Halo 2 has been announced for the PC? That's good. Even though Microsoft should release the Xbox version of Crimson Skies.

"Where are these people getting the fact that OSX upgrades are faster?"

Uhh... maybe because they are. Very significantly and noticeably so, too. Run 10.0 and 10.4 side by side. If you don't notice a huge speed difference, then you must be [flame].

I wouldn't say that OS X upgrades are simply new versions of Apple's apps. For example, Expos?the window selection tool) and the instant search feature are something I'm using constantly. For a 10.4 user to go back to 10.1 would be like going back to XP. But I fully agree that it's lame that you have to pay full price for semi-annual updates. Not all Mac users are made of money.

This is a gaming blog. So lets talk about how vista will affect games. Macs are not for gamers, so the whole "my OSX isn't as outdated as your XP" is irrelevant. The only reason to be exited about vista is DIRECTX 10. I cant wait to see what developers can do with it. PC games will forever be on the cutting edge of gaming technology, and we have Microsoft to thank for that. DirectX 10 will not run on XP, and will require better hardware. We finally have a reason to upgrade after 6 years of the same. Don't get me wrong (I don't own an xbox), I think Nintendo is the greatest console gaming company, but give Microsoft the credit they are do in the PC arena.

I played with Longhorn Beta 1 for about a week. My conclusion? It's exactly like XP, but crammed full of all kinds of unnecessary graphical fluff and candy coating. Not to mention a good old dose of automation. Thank god for the classic theme.

Maybe it's good that they delayed vista so they can work on making it less like a fancied up turd.

As someone in the IT field I can say that Vista is indeed something to get excited about from a both a casual user/hardcore gamer perspective and a legitimate business perspective. In many ways Vista actually mirrors the better parts of Linux and OSX while implementing some much needed features like user account controll which will be ABSOLUTELY VITAL to businesses. Most of the IT issues appear because you have to have users logged in a local administrators on their workstations to get ANY work done. Vista, in theory should eliminate this, but I'm skeptical about compatibility so I will believe when I see it. But the user profile specific system files in ingeniuos, or rather it took them long enough to figure out that was a better option rather than crashing the whole system and making it unbootable. Also WinFS and other significant changes should make this a real revolution in PCs. The min requirement for Vista is a DirectX 7 card which most should have some Pixel shader functionality. If the majority of even budget or intergrated cards have PS3.0 compatibility then we will be in gaming heaven baby. And yes DirectX 10 really is that great. To all the Mac fanboys, expect MAC hacking to become very cool very quickly now that they have moved to x86 arch. Unfortunately I dont think Apple nor its users are properly prepared for what could be a serious assault on the mac systems. Not from MS but from cross-platform viruses. Which brings us to Linux. Yes linux is great for basic computing because it lacks serious hardware support because the OS is nowhere as closely tied to the hardware as a windows or mac system. Gaming on a linux box-- please...

To make it plain, Vista seeks to take the distanced approach of Linux by making virtual system files that can make changes but not harm the OS. So anytime a program asks to rewrite a system file it rewrites a file saved to a particular user folder. Delete the user and you delete the harmful effects. Its more mac like as its tied closer to the hardware like macs. This in ONLY because it emulates it through more powerful hardware requirements and the fact that modern gpus are much more programmable. So while Vista may seem to be closely tied the hardware from its speed, it just has high system requirements to begin with.

Well duh it's taking Halo 2 with it...what good is it to release a game for an OS that hasn't even been released yet? To read the manual and look at the disc while you wait for it.