Anyone else getting sick of all these updates

S0litaire

anewhope wrote: »

Installing the correct WDDM driver and enabling Aero makes a significant impact on the overall rsponsiveness of the user interface.

Got Nvidia Drivers (it's an Nvidia ION machine) and Aero on...
response is so-so
Ubuntu is a LOT faster on it...

parcival

Surely the main issue is that Microsoft (and everyone else!!) is making software that is overly rich in features.

I am sure that 99% of normal users only use a small fraction of all the features that are available.

The result is a bloated industry where everyone needs a new PC every few years with extra power just to keep up with features that most don't want / need.

Software developers and marketeers sit in offices dreaming up stuff to put in without any real thought about what most of us want / need.

Hammyman

S0litaire wrote: »

I was installing Win7 Ultimate on an dual core atom.
it's slower than XP.

Seeing as pretty much 99.99999% of people installing Win7 Ultimate are using a cracked version, maybe it was because it was a pirated version using a WPA crack and its the free malware and rootkit you get with it that was slowing the system down.

I wouldn't be doing my online banking on it if I were you....

Oh, and Atoms are slower than 2004 Pentium-M CPUs, just in case you weren't aware. So most of your problems are down to using an asthmatic CPU to install a malware ridden OS.

S0litaire

Hammyman wrote: »

Seeing as pretty much 99.99999% of people installing Win7 Ultimate are using a cracked version, maybe it was because it was a pirated version using a WPA crack and its the free malware and rootkit you get with it that was slowing the system down.

I wouldn't be doing my online banking on it if I were you....

Oh, and Atoms are slower than 2004 Pentium-M CPUs, just in case you weren't aware. So most of your problems are down to using an asthmatic CPU to install a malware ridden OS.

Hate to disappoint you...

But my copy is 100% legit!

Also the windows partition has regular anti-virus and root kit scans when I duel boot into Ubuntu

No viruses / malware / rootkits to be found!

Saying that I only use it for self training and playing with demos
with the odd game of CS at the weekends...

and I do do some of my Online banking on the machine...

never had a problem....

RobTang

parcival wrote: »

Surely the main issue is that Microsoft (and everyone else!!) is making software that is overly rich in features.

I am sure that 99% of normal users only use a small fraction of all the features that are available.

The result is a bloated industry where everyone needs a new PC every few years with extra power just to keep up with features that most don't want / need.

Software developers and marketeers sit in offices dreaming up stuff to put in without any real thought about what most of us want / need.

Pretty much yes, the computer industry has grown up around "business" who need these things, for a very very long time the idea was that the "consumer" market was they had the same needs and could use the same systems, this not the case.

I think its a myth that you "need" a new pc every few years, it used to be true when things were developing at a ligntning pace, but now its the case that your equipment will fail before you actually need performance upgrade. Netbooks are an example of this from a processing power pov they are a massive throwback, slower than the slowest desktop processors, but really we can happily run most of our applications on them.

Make no mistake the majority of software engineers work for business and while it is still a young profession we can understand business, but when it comes to the comsumer space it is still crawling and finding is feet and for good reason; the money distribution is very lopsided to a few major players.

RE: Windows, part of the patching problem is the comsumers never get the latest builds of windows, like they would with ubuntu, for me I log onto MSDN and get the lastest build which has the most of the stuff pre-applied, then I use my bought retail key to install and patching is a very minor issue.
normal consumers have a use a build which is years old and requires years worth of patching. an old build of ubuntu would be similar.

RobertoMoir

parcival wrote: »

It seems like every day when I boot up there are updates of some kind. The Microsoft updates seem to be more frequent than ever - 3 times this week already on my vista machine.
Also updates to apple, adobe, flash player also seem more frequent.

Are these all really required and if so do we need all these extra features.

If they are bug fixes then it doesn't say much for the base products.

There are two ways to look at the updates - in fact there clearly are at least two types of update

1. An improvement to the product (your mileage may vary on how much of an improvement some of these are, but anyway...). If these are offered then you don't need to blindly accept them and they're enhancements that you're already getting for "free" after purchasing/installing the original product.
   
   I don't see much to complain about here, especially as its your choice over if and when to install them. If you're happy with your current version of Firefox or iTunes or whatever then carry on using it.
2. Security patches - these are needed, and while some of these are patching holes that are absolutely daft and lead you to question whether or not the people who created that part of the product in question were drunk at the time, many of them are also needed not so much because of a "fault" in the spec or coding of the original product as much as the fact that computer security is a moving target and what was "secure" yesterday simply isn't good enough today.
   
   These are annoying if they happen too often, sure, but at the end of the day they are important and they should also be free of charge. Better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.

Oh and don't listen to any idiot who tells you that they switched from one system to another and now don't have to patch anything. All operating systems, browsers, etc. get enhancements and all of them are complex to have bugs that require you to update them. Anyone who implies otherwise either doesn't know what they are talking about or is outright telling lies and either way should be disregarded.