The Vista Schoolyard Bullies........

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I run Vista on my home machine, and my laptop. At work I run XP, and I've also got an OS X machine.

Vista is a bloated, flaky piece of crap. I can't believe I've put up with it for so long.

The performance gain in switching back to XP is unbelievable, and the 3D gimmicks get boring in hours.

What a waste of time.... How many billions did M$ spend on this junk?

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Aside from some factual mistakes (Like Mac OS being based on OPEN BSD) a decent article.

There's so many hypocritical, lying whores out there attacking MS [and Vista] for no real reason, or at least not remotely true reasons.

HEAR, HEAR!!

I'm comforted to know I'm not the only one those cute and entertaining Mac ads bother.

I agree with you 100%, thanks for saying it more elloquently and logically than I could...

I've given up explaining to every moron who tells me how terrible Vista is, while having never tried it beyond an instore demo, what it's really like to run Vista.

And Mac should be ashamed for the "misstaments" it spews.  I never had an issue with the Mac before, was even thinking of trying one out, but these low ball advertisements they're putting out has turned me off completely.

It's too bad we all just can't get along...

Thanks for your well thought out and logical post...

Great post.

If nothing else, you'll drive the ABMer crowd into a good lather.  Expect to be attacked, your post is dangerous to the echo chamber's resonance.

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I use OS X at home, and XP at work, and my wife has a Vista PC.

I am very happy about both XP and OS X, but OS X wins on ease of use (exposé is a great advantage) and makes life simpler by removing a lot of the unnecessary stuff for the average user.

XP is the best OS Microsoft has produced (98 comes a close second) cause it does what it must do and has never let me down in 5 years.

Vista is bloated and it only adds a lot of unnecessary stuff for the average joe.

My modest opinion.

Just dropping a little note to say I agree with much of what you wrote.  I’ve been using Vista for quite a while as well and it is far more stable than XP ever was (even though I ran Windows 2003 on my workstation and Vista is more stable than that as well).  Also, I just wanted to point out that OS X is based on FreeBSD, not OpenBSD.

Cheers.

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Dear Windows people without any knowledge of the Mac Market whatsoever, or no ability to do research, please...stop. Just stop talking about Apple and the Mac like you know what you're on about, because well, you don't. Take Matt Freestone...

Hi there,

Writing this comment using my 2005 Powerbook G4 happily running OS X Leopard which in many aspects, feels snappier than Tiger. But thanks for your concern !

Have a good day !

"I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?"

My wife's four-year-old PowerBook G4 runs Leopard very happily. I'm using a G4 Mac mini as a Leopard  Server testbed. In our enterprise office, we're rolling out Leopard next month, with support as far back as four-year-old G4s of 1GHz or greater.

The largest portion of our user base has G4 PowerBooks and G5 iMacs or PowerMacs. They'll get full support for Leopard as well. In our testing, it has performed just fine.

Matt, honestly...do you research this stuff before you write it?

Matt -

Please see this:

www.bynkii.com/.../oh_lord_here_we_go_again.html

You don't know Jack about Macs.  3-year-old Macs run Leopard fine.  Quite well, actually.

"Research?  What research? I'm a *journalist* dammit!"  

Fat chance this comment won't be modded, but:

"Chief Technology Officer of 2 seperate corporations"

Really? You'd want someone with such an out-of-touch sense of technology as a CIO? Hope your bosses are more intelligent that you are - and hope they don't see this article. Yikes.

Actually, Leopard runs better than Tiger on my September 2003 12" PowerBook G4. That's four and a half years.

I think your absolutely right and it's about time that a blogger finally stepped up to the plate.  Vista is a great product.  I hated it at first for the sake of hating it and because everyone said it was crap, but when I sat down and actually started using it, I quickly saw how much of a big improvement it was over XP.  It's fast, stable, and way easier to use.  I could NEVER go back to Xp.

I've been running 10.5 on my G5 since day one with no noticeable difference in speed and a large increase in functionality over 10.4.

you need to do your research my chuckleheaded little friend.

For what it’s worth, BSD and GPL licensing are quite different.  BSD licensing, and its supporters, promotes the use of the code for whatever purpose, no strings attached.  GPL licensing, on the other hand, promotes the use of the code for whatever purpose, PROVIDED YOU GIVE BACK ANY CHANGES YOU MADE TO THE CODE.  So, in Apple’s case, no one is crying foul as Apple is using FreeBSD’s code as it was intended.

However, I, again, agree with your way of thinking.  People despise Microsoft for their proprietary code, but Apple does this as well and does it more heavily handed.  At least Vista will run on any x86 hardware.  Apple, on the other hand, locks you in with both software and hardware.  Apple is really only “winning” because people want something other than Microsoft.

Flames can be sent directly to /dev/null.

Cheers.

Sorry Matt, but you just don't get it.

Microsoft can't be a systems company because they're already a monopoly. Apple can be a systems company because they've never been close to a monopoly. It's not hypocrisy, it's legal. Hate that all you like, but you can't change it without changing the laws.

As for your lovely line:

"Ahh yes the Apple fan boys are angry.  You know you're doing something right when the rage comes flying out. "

You're clearly not an impartial journalist, and this line only underscores that. Leaving that aside, the point made by John Welch is that OS X 10.5 works just fine on older Macs, better than 10.4 even. That's on stock Macs, not upgraded machines (which will perform better still, of course).

My previous machine was an iBook that ran MacOS 9 through to OS X 10.4 and became *more* efficient with each major OS upgrade. That's a stock laptop with no way to upgrade anything more than the RAM.

But all this is just fluff. The point you should focus on is that Vista won't seem any more palatable to people by bashing OS X. Saying that Apple aren't any better is irrelevant to the vast majority who are using WinXP and wouldn't buy a Mac anyway. The thing holding back Vista is WinXP, not Apple's OS X.

Matt, I know many people happily running Leopard on 3-year-old hardware. And, in fact, if you look at the numbers, Mac users are much more likely to install the latest OS on older hardware than Windows users are.

As for performance, a relative has a 2003 iMac (1.25GHz PowerPC G4 "lampshade" model with 1.25GB RAM) that's used for email, Web, Word, and Excel, and it runs Leopard as well as it ran Tiger. Would you agree that a 4.5-year-old iMac with a several-generations-ago processor is a pretty good indicator of Leopard's performance on older hardware? ;-)  I think it's fair to say an equivalent 2003 Dell, for example, trying to run Vista wouldn't fare so well.

OK: I'm running Leopard 10.5.2 on my G5 Quad PPC as fast if not faster than my new Intel MacBook.

"how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?"

Do I have to personally know them, or as a developer since 1978, and author, and senior contributor to a number of lists, can I merely know _of_ them? If the latter, then the answer to your question is "somewhere in the 10s of thousands."

(Note that contrary to your assertions,  you didn't say anything about speed in the quote above, which was copied directly from this page.)

Look: I don't know as much about PCs as I do about Apple products, (and I own 2 PCs, running XP and Vista) but I can say that, on average, Apple's OS releases run on machines that go back at least 5 years.

If you're saying "it's not as fast"... well... duh... what's happened to _hardware_ speed over any give 5 years? Remember Moore's Law?

Please don't pass off criticism here as "Mac fanboyz" (a juvenile phrase if ever there was one, and the convenient fall-back for PCers who simply have no Mac experience at all... [not that there are not young jerks in both camps].)

At 61, I'm not a boy anymore (alas) and with 30+ years of professional coding experience, I think my observations are likely at least as accurate as yours (with less than half that.)

Make your case about Vista, but choose a better example...

What do I think? I think....well, you don't actually know anybody who owns a Mac, do you? OK, let me help you out; the computer I'm typing this on is an eight year old Mac with a five year old proessor upgrade, and for day to day stuff (web and email) it runs 10.5 just as well as my two year old Macbook. For more processor intensive stuff, like ripping mp3s or photo manipulation, yeah, it's kinda slow, but it's still usable. But, don't believe me, go check out http://discussions.apple.com/ and see what other people are running 10.5 on. Hint, lots of people are running it on more than three year old Macs.

Oh, and BTW, Apple makes more like 90% of their profits on hardware, which makes your arguement even more silly.

It would be nice if this guy had any actual knowledge of Mac OS X before trying to compare it with vista. There are 5 year old Mac's that will run Leopard. No Joke. I'm not gonna bother going any further than that, but that's just one of the many flaws with his logic....

Let's see. Running 10.4 on a G3 Mac laptop purchased on 1999? Why yes, I am. It's my music server. Running 10.4 on a G3 eMac purchased in 2000? Yes, it's our home desktop machine and fileserver. Running 10.5 on a G4 laptop purchased in early 2004? Yup. It's my travel machine. Running 10.5 on  an iMac purchased in 2004? Yup. It's my desktop machine at work. Then there's my tasty 15" powerbook that has no problem running XP and OS X simultaneously. (Then there are the seven Windows machines at work that I use to run instrumentation. No problems there, either -- drudgery is what XP was *made* for, baby.)

Matt, surely you know that under US anti-trust laws, once a company exerts enough influence on a market (through size, for example) the things they can and cannot do change.

Bundling is perfectly fine until that point, after which it becomes at the very least contested territory.

Apple can do all the things Microsoft cannot, because it's not a monopoly, or has ever been close to one. Microsoft cannot do all the things Apple can, because it's constrained by anti-trust laws (particularly related to tying and bundling).

Is that fair? No, of course not. It's not meant to be fair. If a monopoly could act in the unrestrained manner a non-monopoly can, then it could easily squeeze out all competitors even in unrelated markets. Some fairness must be taken from the monopoly to ensure fairness for other companies.

I'm pretty sure you already know this though, and are trolling a bit on this point.

Right, there's a lot of 'Mac Fanboyz' and experienced users already added into this but I feel having used both that there's a lot to be clarified.

Vista runs on my Windows 2000 COA'd Dell Optiplex GX60.  1.8Ghz Celeron with 512Mb memory.  It doesn't run Aero, I never expected it to.  But the basic OS functions, is usable and I've even got Office 2007 on it and that works at a usable pace as well.  And before anyone points out, the PPC chip used in older macs was faster (clock-for-clock) than the Intel equivalent so your 1Ghz PPC chips will likely be better.  But that's not a Microsoft problem, that was an inherent problem with the way Intel and AMD designed chips - massively long pipelines at high speeds.

In comparison, I've run Vista on around £3,500 worth of desktop workstation, and it's an absolute hoot.  Everything works, everything is just there and as soon as you click on anything it is there.  However come 'Windows 7' or it's successor the machine will be old hat and likely run most of the features at a reasonable pace - which is what the posts above are saying about Macs running Leopard.  It works, but not 'fantastic', just well.

Try to chill out, and take a step back.  Vista is a *HUGE* step forward from XP and has many features that users from all environments will love.  At home, I hate the sidebar - it gets in my way.  At work, I love it - it has all the information I need on it there when I need it.  Not all of it is designed for all situations, and that's where people are getting it all wrong.

Here's a question for the Mac crowd...  Did you know that your wonderful new 'Time Machine' feature has been available on Windows XP machines since Service Pack 2?  It might not be as 'pretty' but then that's all that anyone buys a Mac chooses the Mac for.

Answers on a postcard, hatemail can go to Recycle Bin...

Nothing wrong with vista at home or in corporations (In fact new group policies make it a dream), like you said you just need the hardware which is fully vista compliant (even with aero) from £300+.  All these haters can go back to their little baby OS's, I need an OS that get's the job done, I need vista.

"Lets look at apple products"

Lets not. Lets not look at any other machine os, as I have not really used them. I am using Vista, and its a bloated, unresponsive piece of crap. I even paid for Vista Ultimate, the actual vista ultimate off the shelves.

I am a developer, so my life is worse, Vista is utter rubbish, a piece of s**t operating system.

The idea of an operating system is somthing that helps me get more dont, it operates the system. Vista sits there pleasuring itself at my expense, living off the system resources of my hardware , doing its own thing while I need to get my job done.

I wrote my own thoughts on this on my blog a while back , and to be honest I was in the "lets not bash vista" camp. Well, im afraid after a few serious incidents later with it and the fact that I paid more than usual for it I think I am entitled as a user of MS product for years, to bash as much as I want out of this one.

@ Mike Larwood

What makes the difference between Leopard and Vista for some people (myself for instance), is that Leopard isn't getting gimped on an older system. You install Leopard on an older piece of hardware and you get the full OS, cut and dry; you install Vista on hardware roughly equivalent, and you'll have a working OS, but it won't all be usable. It's not something major to many users, but it's nice to know the OS you just shelled $200-$300 for is fully usable on your existing hardware. I highly doubt that's a unique desire when upgrading OSes.

The addition of Time Machine was a little late in coming, that's not really new information. But then we could criticize Microsoft for not incorporating a decent search tool in their OS until after OS X had created one that made finding files a simple keystroke.

As for claiming Mac users buy their machines simply out  of the desire for something "pretty" to look at while they use their computer, I would have to disagree. I do indeed find OS X more aesthetically appealing, it's true; but the fact is I use OS X for its stability and ease of use, something Windows has never been good at in my experiences, not because it's "pretty". I updated to Leopard and had bugs for the first update or two (a span of a few months to my recollection), whereas Vista is still experiencing technical difficulties that cause me to pull my hair out, like insisting you're running an "illegal" copy of Vista when you are in fact running a fully legal copy and having it subsequently lock you out of your computer. And it's been more than a few months since Vista's release, something I hardly find a plus.

It's written as OS X, not OSX.  If you are going to bash Apple in defense of Microsoft, at least get that much right.

Could you possibly use the word "fantastic" a few more times when describing Microsoft related stuff?  Talk about your MS fanboy with claws extended and teeth bared.

You make it sound as if Apple has no competition, when they certainly have other computer makers and other operating systems to contend with and to fight for market share and profits.  Unless you think that Microsoft with their OEM influence doesn't have enough market share in the OS arena as it is.  Unless you think that Dell, HP, Sony, and every other PC maker isn't a competitor to Apple.  Of course Apple charges too much, that's because they want to price themselves out of the market.  Not.

Sure, Apple controls its pricing and makes it hard to get discounts.  But MS does the same for its software.  And there is no way you're going to convince me that paying nearly $300 for one license of an 'ultimate' full version of an OS is a great value, when I can buy five full licenses of OS X for around $200.  Before the recent MS price drops it was even worse.

Perhaps Vista will be a "fantastic" OS one day.  It has had its share of growing pains and missteps.  XP wasn't perfect from day one, as you and Bott like to note.  I'll admit MS has taken steps to improve Vista, with the most recent being Vista SP1.  But it's not quite there just yet.  Maybe that's why people have real reasons to think it sucks.  And to truly mean it.

I've been running Vista since it was released. I have no complaints about the system. It works perfectly fine. Performance is on-par with XP (except starting up and shutting down). I only had one program that was incompatible.

But, unlike many others, I didn't upgrade from XP. This was a new PC. Thus everything works fine out of the box, even all the included crapware...

The bulk of Vista's "problems" are related to people trying to upgrade. The reality is that most home users don't bother to spend the time doing simple research: Will version x of program x work in Vista? What are Vista's requirements? Etc...

Vista is more than just a new UI. Microsoft rewrote almost every subsystem, so this is essentially a new OS... It works fine on today's hardware. It doesn't work that well on hardware from 5 years ago.

i have a 2 year old intel mbp (core duo, 2gb ram). guess what? it runs a fresh install (not an upgrade) of osx leopard like crap. it also runs vista like crap.

i just bought a brand new dell, it runs vista ultimate wonderfully with all gubbins turned on. I'd love to try osx on it, but of course, that would be illegal.

the thing that gets me about osx, is that you're essentially paying for service packs / feature packs every two years. with three macs in the house we bought a family license, and let me tell you, an older macbook (ppc / 1.5gb memory) doesn't run leopard well at all.

Hahah... Apple Fanboys crack me up.  (well, all fanboys do, but ESPECIALLY apple fanboys.)

One more large piece of hypocrisy:

By the definition of the courts in Microsoft's antitrust case, Apple is a monopoly.   Microsoft argued that they weren't a monopoly because apple had a non-inconsequential share of the Operating System market.   This was rejected by the judge, who declared that Apple's OS was not part of the same market as Windows.   Thus, Apple has 100% of the OS market for Apple hardware - and thus they should be held to the same standards as Microsoft when it comes to bundling...  the gaggle of iApps is just as illegal as anything MS bundled.

The only question all this makes me ask is....why are their so many Mac guys trolling a Microsoft/Windows blog?  Seriously, they're almost teh only ones commenting.

It must be because Mac's are so much better, they have more time for this sort of thing I guess....

Oh, and as for those calling into question the worthiness of Matt's writing because he spelled "its" wrong (mostly on the linked blog), GROW UP.   You really sound like a big man when you basically say "I'm not going to read or listen to anything that doesn't have perfect grammer."  Oh wait, you really sound anal, not big nor a man.  Why don't you stand up and write something that's grammatically perfect every time, since you Mac guy's obviously have the time....

@jrb. I call 'bull'

'.... and let me tell you, an older macbook (ppc / 1.5gb memory) doesn't run leopard well at all.'

Somehow I don't believe you, there was no ppc macBook. Not knowing this tells me you know squit about Macs at all.

I was directed here from bynkii's blog ...... YOu do make quite a few blanket Apple statements that are completely wrong but have been corrected by others. Overall not a bad article and i enjoy using Vista in Boot Camp more so then XP.

"Vista is more than just a new UI. Microsoft rewrote almost every subsystem, so this is essentially a new OS... It works fine on today's hardware. It doesn't work that well on hardware from 5 years ago."

Ummmm, hmmm, I seem to remember that about 3, 4 years ago, MS scrapped the "re-write" from the ground up because it didn't work.  They ended up building on top of Windows Server 2003.  There was quite a press article about it in the Wall Street Journal.  So Vista is not a ground up re-write.  And it is pretty much just a new UI.  With some DRM baked in and some other MS goodness.  All the promised features that were announced had been one, by one removed.   Windows has become quite a huge system.  There is bound to be trouble adding features to it at this point.  And why Vista is bloated (even Ballmer has admitted to this).

I've worked with windows since 1994.  Had to switch from OS/2 to 3.11. What was ironic was MS had written OS/2.  And OS/2 was far superior. What happened there?

XP has been the better MS OS, but it suffers from the same bit rot as all prior versions.  It slows down.  No matter all the defragging (and why after 15 years are we still having to defrag windows? The *Nix filesystems don't seem to suffer from this problem) and other maintenance.  Windows always bogs down.  A clean install is the only way to get your performance back.  

During this time I've worked with Unix, Linux and recently Mac.  Four years ago when my wife and I were looking for a new pc, I threw up my hands and stated that its just another windows box that we'll have nothing but trouble with (my wife is not a pc expert).  We bought a Mac mini.  Best investment.  After 4 years, still haven't had all the trouble we've always had with Windows.  

And now MS and their proponents are trying to convince me that

"Vista is better now, really it is, believe us this time....".  

I understand the problem MS has, they want to be backward compatible with apps that are 20 years old and provide new features.  So there are lots of problems.  But once again, they wrote OS/2 and OS/2 was able to run Windows 3.1 inside it, and it ran very well inside it.

Apple did a good thing by starting fresh.  It has been a boon for them and they decided to go with a known stable OS as a base (FreeBSD).  FYI - FreeBSD is not GPL.  Also there is nothing wrong with Apple making money from using FreeBSD.  And the BSD license allows for it.  Besides the updates are provided back.  And anyone can download it.  The OS is called "Darwin".   Google it, you'll be able to find it.  

I have a Mac 1.25 Ghz G4 released in June 2003 (main computer), I am running 10.4.11, but will be moving up to 10.5 soon. I am not comfortable adopting new releases, so I wait for bug updates. So that make my machine about 5 years old. The silence might not be so deafening. If I owned a PC I certainly would have waited for SP1 to come out before adopting, now that it has how many 5 year old PCs will be running? That silence might indeed be deafening.

As a Developer i moved to OS X about 5 years ago as a stable hardware Unix platform.... it has everything i need ..... i tried and played with Vista but it is not for my purposes. I used Linux and FreeBSD until right around 4 something .... Right now i am playing with Ubuntu on a Mac Mini at work and find it very reliable. One thing about the Mac is i do like the stability of the hardware and software combinations. The comment about the 5 year old PPC PowerBook not running LEopard properly is completely and utterly not true for my situation... i can compile and build all the tools i use for work that do not come on the Developer Tools from Apple.

The one thing i find annoying is people saying there is not software for the Mac.... i have access to all the Linux and Unix distros as well as all the software that is available for the Mac. Plus with the new MacBookPro i just bought i could even run window if i wanted and could run all software on my one computer..... With the ability to run Virtual Machines on OS X my test environment is complete as i can even run a jailed BSD box on my MacBookPro for testing a web development environment.... Everything has it purpose ...... Apple new Systems can just do them all well. Now only if the overhead on the OS could be managed better with out going into sysctl and you manage the install of OS X server better to only install what u need it would be better..... until then keep up the good work.

I find Vista sucks and Leopard suck as far as being resource hogs and bloated ..... just Leopard sucks less.

Thanks and keep blogging.

One of the other posters forwarded me this article at work .... you complained about Apple releasing a Beta version of Itunes..... you said the same thing about Windows XP ... and later about Vista even though you claim its release was better.... I have 55 developers working for that made the choice to move to Apple hardware and software after one or two others did. I lease my equipment so every 3 years i get the roll over of technology for new technology with out ending up with a grave yard of old equipment.

I had 18 of my Dev Team get Dell's with Vista installed ..... all 18 moved to MacBooks (out of choice) and run XP in Parallels when they need it... my CSR's got Dells ..... i have 18 Dells that i got enough complaints about i returned them for Macs and bit the penalty on the lease.

These are a good 55 Developers and maybe another 40 or so people between Systems, CSRs and Integration ...... that choose OS X for everyday use...... all are very computer savy .....  like many Apple fanboys u r a MS fanboy ..... i like things that work...... other then the 360 i own and have had repaired 3 times for the ring of death ... i don't usually buy products that do not  work.

"I simply said that a new OS, Leopard, was designed to run on the latest hardware, and would therefore run slower on older Macs.  If he wants to tell me that’s not the case, I would love to hear it!"

The bottom line is that it's not the case.

My PowerBook is a 12" 1GHz G4 with 768MB of memory. It was first manufactured in September 2003 and discontinued in April 2004. And being the smallest of the PowerBooks, it was a very modest performer compared to other entries in that generation.

Now Leopard didn't suddenly make it a much faster machine or anything like that, but the idea that Leopard won't run on it is pretty much ridiculous. Leopard performs noticeably better than Tiger almost across the board. Even the initial indexing took less time in Leopard (2.5 hours) than it did in Tiger (7 hours).

Oh, poor poor Vista is being "picked on."  Sorry bud, but your "blog" is silly.  I tried Vista pre-installed on THREE different machines at work.  Very crappy, even for an M$ OS.  With all of its problems, I banned it from my networks.

A few die-hard MS afficianados in the company use it.  On their laptops.  They tell me "it works well."  Turns out that the most these guys do on it is run MS Office.....  I tested it thoroughly, with many different apps, printers, etc.  I won't use it again.  Sort of odd that server 2008 is supposed to share the same code base- 2008 actually works okay.

But don't compare OSX to Windows- OSX blows windows away.

"Wow, I think I stirred up the Apple fan boy bee's nest and pissed off all 30 Apple computer owners in the world, and their pissed!"

Perhaps. But the real problem is that your attempt to defend Microsoft by comparing Vista to Apple's Leopard was factually incorrect, and this error torpedoed the main thesis of your essay.

I appreciate that as a Vista fanboy you probably see the entire world through rose-colored glasses and believe that spending thousands for a new platform to run your favorite operating system is justified by the fact that "even Apple does that." Hell, you allude to being pissed at Apple's ads because they don't get the "facts" right as you see them.

But the bottom line is that you're factually incorrect regarding Leopard's hardware requirements.

Now I don't have a problem with Microsoft's Vista; it seems clear that Microsoft was more than willing to release an OS which requires the latest hardware to run properly--and for Microsoft that makes sense given that the bulk of Windows licenses are sold for new computers. Windows XP pretty much required a hardware rev as well when it rolled out, as did Windows 95, come to think of it--this seems to be the pattern in the Windows world, and until Vista came along only the fringes seemed to complain because their three-year old sound card or three-year old video card did not have the latest drivers to work properly.

The real problem with Vista which is causing people to focus their attention on Microsoft's habit of requiring the latest and greatest (as opposed to Apple, which has had a history of supporting 5+ year old hardware) is the fact that, to support Intel's older (and less capable) video hardware, Microsoft allowed the use of "Vista Compatible" stickers on hardware that really wasn't able to run Vista correctly. That screw-up is what has caused people to focus their attention on Vista's hardware requirements, because even people who buy new hardware aren't really sure if Vista will work correctly.

I'm a Microsoft MVP so I'm somewhat biased. I own several Wintel machines including a great Dell D830 as well as a new MacBook. The Dell and MacBook are "equivalent" machines in core architecture, CPU speed, memory and hard drives. I'm currently running Vista Ultimate on the Dell and Leopard on the MacBook.

The differences in "apparent speed" (just my personal judgement, not verified by testing) are HUGE! Unfortunately, the MacBook boots much faster, loads applications much faster and shuts down much faster.

As for the user experience, I like both Vista and Leopard equally and think each has it's own good and bad UI points.

And as for the "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" ads, they are some of the most entertaining advertisements on TV and in print today. A little humor goes a long way!

I have Vista Ultimate running on all of my home PC's (one is laptop). I also have an XBOX 360 that receives Windows Media Center content from my main Vista Box and they all works flawlessly.

My question for the "critics" is they always say it is bloated? Give several examples please....

Matt:

What are you, 10 years old? Your ignorance about the Mac platform is astounding. Please don't write checks with your mouth that your ass can't cash.

And, fwiw, I'm a die-hard Windows fanboi.

"I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?  The silence is deafening"

One right here - 15" PowerBook G4 1.67Ghz, bought in April, 2005 at the Tiger launch party.  Been running Leopard since it came out.  Few issues and it runs much more reliable than any Windows Machine.

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I'm running Tiger 10.4.10 on an almost 8 year old Powerbook G4, and its just starting to show its age. Its too bad theres no PowerPC version of Leopard.

Apple is definitely more backward compatible, I'd like to see someone run XP or Vista on an 8 year old PC.

Well, I have a G4 iBook that is about 4 years old and it is running Leopard very well.  A small investment in Leopard has given that machine new life.

I also have a dual quad-core Mac Pro that dual boots Vista and Leopard.  Vista runs just fine on that box, but I have to say:  There isn't a single "gotta have" feature in Vista - and that's Microsoft's problem.

I have users at my company that move back and forth between Vista and XP all day.  Not one user has told me that they miss Vista when they are on an XP box.

Vista is different, but not in any way that matters to regular people.

I'm a long time XP user, and I like the OS. When Vista SP1 came out I installed it on my older 2Ghz Athalon desktop. After using it for a couple of months, I've found it suprisingly enjoyable to use. It loads apps much more quickly than my newer dual core laptop, probably due to memory caching. It looks good and there are a hundred minor tweaks that make the experience feel great. I was one of those badmouthing Vista and now that I've used it I tell people that it's actually pretty good.

I'm just going to watch these windows and mac users bicker and enjoy my copy of Ubuntu that just came out last week.

I have to say that I installed Leopard on my 3 year old Powerbook G4 with a slight upgrade hitch, but otherwise it runs just fine and plenty fast for most things. And everyone knows that the G4's were quite slow relative the the G5 desktop systems that were shipping at the time that would not doubt be considerably faster.

So, no, I've never used Vista. But yes, I have upgraded my three year old Mac to Leopard and am quite happy.

I'm one of the people who have installed Leopard onto a number of four and five year old systems...

The thing to remember though, is that Leopard is the first system to set the cutoff point that recently - previous versions of OS X generally supported hardware going back 7 years or more!  The Intel transition and some technologies Apple added to OS X kind of demanded Leopard set a higher bar for transition than previous releases, but going forward we'll probably see newer versions of OS X extend support back beyond four or five years again.

Vista on the other hand, did not have a fundamental architecture change to undergo in that way so it should be ahead of the game with backwards compatibility.

You're also awfully defensive about "Mac Fanbois" when all they've done is called out a single inaccurate statement in your post.  Your response was totally over the top and childish.

Its unbelievable how much a hyve of apple fanboys come running in defending their great platform.  Everyone calls Microsoft a downright crap company and I am not here to defend them either some of the decisions they made where horrible but with Vista you need to look at it differently.

First of all comparing MacOSX to Windows is bullshit to begin with:

1. Windows is FOR backward compatibility they try to retain the old architectures so that people can still use their applications from 1986 and no I am not buying the emulator Apple made emulators tend to be problematic and can cause problems (as VMWARE illistrated).

2. Vista ONLY goes into crippled mode if you do not have a DirectX9 Compliant videocard so from the top of my head the Radeon 9500 from 2002 would be the card you would want and the crippled mode wears off.  Ofcourse it wont run nicely but it WILL run (just like this punt saying he can READ EMAIL with his 5 year old machine)

3. Apple Limits your choices in Software ofcourse its going to run beter then windows when apple can just give you the finger and announce in an year that the PowerPC architecture is being phased out. Microsoft is a SOFTWARE developer not a Hardware/Software developer if Microsoft developed their own hardware ofcourse Vista would run beter. But sadly where apple only has 10-30 configurations to look for a PC can have Billions of different setups so its a lot harder to ensure a stable enviroment.

Again I am getting sick of apple fanboys who think they know their way aroudn a computer and think they know everything oh so much beter then a PC user well first understand what a PC is before comparing it to an apple you dont know anything but your sweet like mac and I am sick of seeing fanboys acting like complete retards because they want to be a nelitist snub.

This article is really not good.  There are many factual mistakes.  Your anger is childish as are your responsea.  Let's call Apple owners fanboys because thats the only way we can feel OK about our 3rd rate choice.  Sad.

As a sys admin at a medium sized company that runs more than 75% macs, I have to say, more than 90% of them are currently running OSX 10.5.

I also support Windows Vista for limited applications, and yes, I have also had requests to upgrade to XP.

Aside from the general Dells that I have thrown around the company, I also have XP virtual machines. Vista didn't work well in a VM.

All in all I think Vista's reputation is warranted. SP1 hasn't been out long enough to make a real call on it yet, but the net result of Vista is that my mixed platform shop has become more and more Mac based.

We are experimenting with Linux on some of the older Dells, with the hope that we will not need to retire them, and they can be used as appliance machines (printing specialized labels, running web services, etc.)

Anyhow, I really just took offense to the "how many people do you know running Leopard on 3 year old machines" comment.

The silence isn't deafening, it's the majority of users I know. Even low speced machines like Asus' eee have been hacked to run 10.5

My experience with Vista is that it is trash. It is incompatible with a lot of our critical windows only software. Because of that, there really isn't a point in supporting windows anymore.\

Since Parallels and Fusion have been released I have purchased less than a dozen new dells. Last year was much more than this.

Umm, I'm running 10.5 on a 5 year old powermac and it runs great (original video card and 1.25Gb ram), even for editing video.  I also run it on a 3 year old iBook (stock model) and it is just as quick as when it had 10.4, faster than when it had 10.3!

I've also had to downgrade (or upgrade?) brand new vista laptops for friends to xp because the original OS was so disappointing for them.  Admittedly they were budget acer and hp hunks of junk but they had a vista sticker....

"In reality, it simply points out their own ineptitude's"

Go on... Their own ineptitude's what?

Leopard actually made my 4 year old G4 powerbook and three year old G5 run much more smoothly. Faster boot-up times and generally snappy performance.

Read all the posts on this page that describe how old Apple hardware runs latest versions of OSX.

As much as I hate some of Apple's dishonour by belittling it's competition, one of the first things a switcher to mac notices are how succeeding versions of OSX actually get faster on the same machine, as opposed to being slower like Windows versions.

That really is a big surprise.

I installed Leopard on my 4 and a half year old PowerBook G4 and it ran faster than Tiger did. So I'm not entirely sure what your point is?

It is hilarious for someone who doesn't know how to use an apostrophe to talk about Vista critics' "ineptitude's". Their ineptitude's what?

My friend's powerbook g4 runs leopard at no difference to a brand new bog standard macbook pro, whereas this bog standard macbook pro struggles to run vista with office, and visual studio installed. > 14gb is used to install the core operating system which is just mind boggling...

Please base your articles on actual tests before writing content that has no factual basis. As for not releasing the source code for FreeBSD, they actually do, just not the proprietary parts they write.

Another mac user's opinion.

When it comes to leopard's performance on older hardware, from what I can tell it's definitely wrong to claim it performs worse than previous OS versions on the same hardware. My G4 mini (3 yo, 1.2 ghz, 1 GB ram, radeon 9200 32 MB graphics) has the same performance on leopard as it did on tiger. Tiger in turn was a little faster than the OS it originally came with, panther. In all cases I didn't need to optimize it for performance, I just use it with the default settings, and I get access to all the features.

What leopard does do on older hardware is gradually scale back some of the pointless gee-whiz effects. For example, I can use dashboard (apple's widget system) just fine, but if I drop a widget on my dashboard, I don't get the fancy "ripple" effect that I get on my 1 yo macbook. Another example: the menu bar on my mini is opaque, the one on my macbook is subtly translucent. I see no reason Aero couldn't have been designed to scale back gradually on older hardware also, especially since architecturally it is quite comparable to Aqua. So, I do think it is a valid position to say that Vista's hardware requirements, at least when it comes to graphics, are needlessly stringent. It's quite ironic that Vista, made by a company that doesn't sell computers, is more likely to force you to buy a new computer than Mac OS, made by a company who lives off selling computers.

The silence of older mac users running leopard seems to be far from deafening.  I run Leopard on a 1ghz PowerBook G4 with 512 megs of ram.  It is a far cry from running Leopard on an intel machine, but it is a definite upgrade from Tiger.  Thanks for rallying the troops, Matt.

While you make some valid points you some are 'misstatements' and I quote: "Those 'features' were never set in stone.  In fact, a feature isn't set in stone until the RC phase of a product.  To make a great product you always need to aim for the stars, and then come back down to Earth as you must to make a solid product at a realistic release time table."

Most of those features were promised by Microsoft waaay before Vista. MS is an specialist at vending vaporware so there's not much you can do about it.

"Things such as WinFS and other features that I was just dying for, never made it to the final product design."

WinFS has been promised since the early 90s, there's no way they couldn't get their *** together for the Vista release.

"Was I disappointed?  Of course.  Does that make Vista any less of a fantastic OS?  Absolutely not."

Maybe it doesn't make Vista a bad OS but the only thing that you're buying is a new graphical interface, Aero, which is far worse than Compiz and less customizable. Compiz need consume less hardware resources too. At least the GUI in Leopard has some technical advantages over Compiz (since Leopard is built in the core of the OS) but still Compiz is far more customizable and is arguably less resources-hungry.

I for one don't like the idea of having OSX as the most used OS around the world, Apple seems to be worst company than MS when it comes to proprietary stuffs (since that is a more than likely scenario than Linux taking over so) I would like to see MS learn from some of the mistakes made on Vista and get their *** together with Windows 7.

I've got Leopard running on a <b>6 year old</b> Power Mac G4.  It runs <b>better</b> than it did with Tiger on it.  You really need to do some fact checking.  The adoption rate of Mac users to new OSes is far higher than that in the Windows world.

"Was I disappointed?  Of course.  Does that make Vista any less of a fantastic OS?  Absolutely not."

Now that's just silly. A new, positive feature isn't included. Of COURSE it makes Vista "less of a fantastic OS."

The phrase you were probably looking for is "Does that make Vista a bad upgrade? Absolutely not." Or maybe "Does that make Vista not a good upgrade? Absolutely not."

Either of those would actually make sense.

"How many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?  The silence is deafening." Sorry but the silence is not so deafening there are lots of people running Leopard on older equipment. I know this because I work in computer support. I run 10.5 on my PowerPC 1.25Ghz iMac too OK so it's not as fast as 10.4 but I enjoy all the new features.

I see the Borg collective has already visited.

The old aphorism about the only certain things in life being "death and taxes" needs to be amended to include

"legions of Apple fanboys scouring the web ready to swarm any hint of dissension."

Think different.

Why are there so many Mac users browsing a windows blog? Do you have some inferiority complex or something?

Hey, Just wanted to say that Vista runs great on my machine, I can play all games on high without slowdowns, and my 3DMARK06 score on Vista is 11420 while on XP it is 11957. Not much of a difference there :). Vista is a next generation OS, so it needs next generation hardware.

So i'm running Mac OS X leopard on a 2000 powermac g4 digital audio 533mhz with 1gb ram and 128mb ati radeon 9700pro... and it's actually really usable, i can simultaneosly encode 1080p video ,burn a DLdvd at 16x,encode wav files in itunes, listening to music in itunes, and browse safari, all at once... and it's still useable, also have leopard running on a 1999 350mhz powermac g4 with 1gb 64mb nvidia running leopard  as well as a 1999 powermac g3 450 with 1gb ram 64mb radeon running tiger . Would a Pc from 1999 or 2000 run vista well, if even at all? i still have the original airport wireless card from 1999 in the digital audio.     i still wont buy a new machine...

Umm... I have three PowerPC Mac's all are 5+ years old and Leopard runs faster on them then the earlier releases of Mac OS X.   It's been that way for each subsequent release of Mac OS X since the 10.1 version!  

I've also got a Sony VAIO desktop that is 5+ years old and that computer can barely run Vista, even with a new video card, upgraded PCI SATA card and hard disk, and the maximum of RAM!  

I am replacing the two desktops (VAIO & PowerMac G4) with a Mac Pro 8 core w/8GB's of RAM and a 30" display.  It will be running VMWare's Fusion and will be running Leopard 10.5, Vista Ultimate 32/64bit, Win2k3 Server, WinXP SP3, and various Linux systems and Solaris x86.  

The VAIO will be going to a recycling center and the PowerMac G4 to a church as it's still very viable and very much useable for several more years.

As far as Vista in the business world?  I work for a Fortune 100 financial firm and we have no plans to go to Vista Enterprise until 2011 or unless Microsoft releases Windows version 7 by then.  It's not worth the hardware expense nor the training expense nor the engineering effort to get everything working as it should.  

Pingback from  VistaKnowledge.com   &raquo; How can Microsoft overcome Vista???s lingering image problem? &raquo; Windows Vista Desktop Customization &amp; News

I'll start by noting that I have only used a Mac on rare occasions and don't know many of the power user functions like I do from  years of Windows use since Windows 3.1

Ok, so aside from the mistakes made about OS X running on older computers, lets take the real meat out of all this. Yes Vista does work on older hardware. I currently run it on Athlon64 3200+ with 1gb DDR. It runs quite well to be honest. Yes, somethings are a tad bit slower, but this is a 4yr old laptop. I don't expect a computer thats more then a year old to run an OS thats designed to be around for several years. Yes, Windows 7 is already in the planning and on the way, but we all know corporate users won't be changing the day its released so expect Vista to be around for a while after 7 comes out (we stil use Win2k where I work)

I also don't think its bloated at all. When Windows doesnt contain a built in application to perform a particular funtion, people complain why can't Windows do such an such. But then, when they include a built in app to perform that function, they get slammed for "extra" software thats not needed. I have used Linux and even an older Mac with OS X. Yes, they do perform alot of tasks that appear to be native to the core OS when they are actually performed by background applications that integrate directly with the desktop. Some people complain that Windows continually crashes and needs to be rebooted, I personally only reboot my computers every few weeks when Windows Update tells me it has too.

Basically, I think it comes down to any modern computer (yes Macs stay modern a bit longer then pc's) can run the newest OS. Lets not complain when we are running a pc thats in the lower end of the spec'd requirements that it is a horrible system just because you can't get all the bells and whistles to work. XP worked on a larger range of pc's as its been around for several years, what was the lower end of the scale then is not even imaginable for a modern pc now (think Pentium II).

i worked for geek squad during the initial release of vista. that being said. people did try to upgrade 3 year old pcs to vista and encountered major problems, this is true for most OS out there, your trying to run the latest OS on old crappy hardware, this is true for mac or windows. but the fact that an out of the box machine ran like crap, worse than the xp machine that we had in the back that had surfing and tun of junk just stored on it, is saying something. i also did in-home work in the months following the release. it was plagued with issues, issues that i never saw with xp (and yes i was around when xp released and have been using it ever since).  and a point and case a new operating system that is brand spanking new and sparkly should have minor updates in first years, not a service pack updating a large portion of the OS before it's even a year old. that just screams, "we released something that we should have worked on longer" so it is MS's fault that their os did so crappy out of the gate. they did not spend the time in dev to create a solid OS to release to information age. personally i would hope to see MS's monopoly on the tech work take a huge hit do to vista.

Why would you buy a Mac when they don't even know what a computer is? PC stands for "Personal Computer" which surely puts Macs into the PC category too. If Mac can't realise this, they are obviously pretenders. They don't know what it means to make computers at all!

As an IT Consultant, I'll tell you that Vista is by far, the most stable first release of Windows ever made. Can nobody remember the early days of XP? Perhaps because nobody bought it when it first came out! Everyone likes to pick on Microsoft but people always pick on something they're jealous of - that's just human nature. Let's not lie here - Microsoft is good at what they do and I like the majority of the computing World, choose to run their software because I can depend on it.

I just wanted to quickly gather up some links to articles I&#39;ve found interesting of late. First of

My old Mac is running just fine with Leopard. My new Mac is is running fine with Leopard. My work PC is running fine with XP. Windows problems keep me employed thank God! Your article is dead wrong but it sure got you some new hits to your blog didn't it!

Love Vista, XP, and OS-X. (Love computers in general)

I think 90% of Vista's issues for most users could be resolved by altering the default configuration of the OS. At this early stage (remember how OS-X 1.0 sucked?), I find I have to resort to Linux-like digging under the hood to get certain things to work, that's fun for me but a pain for my wife. For instance, doing file sharing with an OS-X machine was an eye-opener. I had to change the network authentication protocols available to Vista, by default they're locked down for Vista-to-Vista communications. Logging into RDC, I had to learn the hard way that Vista wants you to (like OS-X) save transferred files to the "Public" sharing folder  unless you jump through some hoops. The the Aero interface is cool and beautiful, but the Vista basic interface is almost as sweet and has the same hardware requirements as XP. Microsoft should "downgrade" the default config of Vista to be more like XP and watch how basic users begin to smile again.

I don't have Leopard on an old machine, but I'm running Tiger on a 400 MHz Mac from 2000 and it runs fine.  With each version of OS X, Macs in my experience get *faster*, not slower.  Provided you have enough memory anyway.

Despite your litte biog in the footer, I still believe you're 14yrs old. You may be a hard core geek, but you're a terrible writer.

I run Leopard on a 5 year old G4 1Ghz eMac with 768mb RAM.  It isn't the speediest thing, and iPhoto sometimes has a hard time with my 4500+ photo library, but it works well enough to use.  That being said, I do want to get a new iMac within the next year.

>> I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year

>> old Mac, and install Leopard on it?  The silence is deafening.

The absolute ignorance you revealed in these two sentences and the lack of care you took to determine the facts which could have easily been done without ever leaving Apple's web site is overshadowed only by the balls it takes to have written such tripe when you know Apple fanboys will come calling to roast those above mentioned balls over a Pentium 4 fueled fire. And I'm not even a Mac fanboy.

The facts? Leopard is certified to run any computer with an 867 MHz or better processor. Apple set a conservative minimum - I actually installed it on a G4 computer running at 800 MHz with 512MB and it ran amazingly well. And when were these computers first made available? 2002. In other words, Leopard will run on 5 year old Macs and not just run on them - run well. Run with stability. Run, not walk. Wish I could say the same for a brand new Core Duo based PC I bought that had a Vista sticker on it.

You have no credibility. The wise man is he who knows what he doesn't know. You sir, are no wise man. You are a fool.

> Now, if your like our friend at Bynkii.com,

I think you mean “you’re”.

> Oh, and as for one other comment, I'm most definitely not a journalist, nor

> would I ever disgrace myself by calling myself one.

Surely you mean “nor would I ever disgrace journalists by calling myself one”.

By the way, I've also got a PowerBook G4 running Leopard without any trouble. In fact, I'd say it’s faster.

"and their pissed!"

Missing a word?

Oh, you mean "they're pissed!"

"I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?"

Uh, everyone I know who owns more than one Mac, especially if they are portables.

Terrible argument. Do some research next time. You sound like an idiot.

Troll much? Next time, do some actual research before writing your bloated, fact-free rants.

First of all, I don't own a Mac, nor do I use Vista - I'm currently using XP and Fedora 7.

Matt: there have been plenty of Mac users pointing out that they're using Leopard on older Macs, mostly doing so in a perfectly restrained manner, exhibiting neither rabid fanboyism nor any overt hostility towards you or Vista.

I'm prepared to believe them. You would be better served, and would gain some respect, to admit that you were wrong. Your wrong-headed insistence that you've somehow flushed out the "fanbois" just makes you ridiculous.

Apple has given back a lot of code as open source, including all of the Darwin OS that Mac OS X is based on:

www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource

Also, see Darwin Streaming Server, Bonjour, WebKit, launchd, etc.

Oh, and my Jan 2002 800MHz G4 runs Leopard great!  In fact, it feels faster than my Dec 2007 laptop running Vista... :\

mac uzers are lame! go play with you're blueberry Imac and come back to the party when you have Intel Inside cuz PPCs sux. and you can't even play GTA IV cuz you're video cards are lame too. Vista is awesome and makes mac's look like Commodore 68's ! Matt is right apple fanboyz are crying because he doesn't like you're strawberry and dalamation Imacs!

www.bynkii.com/.../oh_lord_here_we_go_again.html

Read about what stupid screed this is.

I've run the each of the newest OSX releases on my Mac since i bought it in 2002.

( 2x867, MDD G4 Tower, apple-history.com )

Every single Major (and minor) OS Update has made my computer feel MORE responsive. (with the exception of 10.5, until the first minor 10.5 update came along)

I admit it wasn't as fast as brand new computers, but by no means did a major update ever make my computer feel or act worse, or did i feel like i NEEDED to upgrade (for any reason other than the normal gadget-lust)

I still have the G4 tower from 2002 in my guest bedroom (Finally replaced with an iMac in my bedroom and a mac pro in the office) humming along on 10.5.2. ...sure, it now has 2gb of ram, 1.2TB of HD space, an upgraded video card, 6 extra USB2 ports, etc. It's been upgraded a bit from stock, but it's all plug-and-play, nothing extreme. (NO cpu upgrades)

...just thought you'd like to know...  (then again, you're probably just link-baiting, so i assume you really really care.)

as a side note: i think one of the real issues here is that Apple doesn't sell the bargain-basement $400 crap that dell does (these gateways and dells are 2 years old the day they're sold, so in essence, people trying to install Vista on a 3-year-old cheap piece of junk are basically actually trying to install it on a 5-year-old low end machine. If Apple sold $600 laptops and junkie $400 desktops, then yeah, people might have trouble installing the newest OS on their "3" (really 5 or 6) year old machine.

@hominid

just for the record: "you crazy."

@ Jason Richards -

if you are so unhappy with Apple products why do you appropriate their international flag icons from the iTunes store and use them on your site [http://www.touchcomm.net/], ostensibly implying they are designed by your "consulting firm"? Before you state that someone else is "obviously pretenders", you might want to take at yourself first.

Matt noted:

"Before I explain some common sense things, let's first take a look at Apple's OS history and deployment strategies.  I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?  The silence is deafening."

Er, how  about an 8 year old Mac running Leopard?  Comments, please, if I have a Mac with 0.25 GB running Leopard.  Can Long{horn|wait} do that??

web.mac.com/.../23_Installing_Leopard_%3A_Near_Perfection.html

Or in summary:

2007/12/20  bigcatos@mac.com

The Leopard Installer rocks. Leopard rocks1. Time Machine rocks. I say that because I

now have ten perfect 10.5.1 Leopards scampering around, of wildly disparate

pedigrees:

(2) late  2007 24” 2.0GB / 2.8GHz  C2-Ext iMac

(1) late  2007 24” 4.0GB / 2.4GHz  C2-Duo iMac

(1) early 2005 15” 1.0GB / 1.5GHz  G4     PowerBook

(1) late  2004 17” 0.5GB / 1.9GHz  G5     iMac / iSight

(1) early 2003 17” 0.8GB / 1.0GHz  G4     iMac

(1) late  2002 17” 0.5GB / 1.0GHz  G4     PowerBook

(1) early 2002 15” 0.25GB/ 0.8GHz  G4     iMac (unsupported RAM & CPU speed)

(1) early 2001 NA  1.0GB / 0.73GHz G4     B&W PowerMac (unsup. CPU speed)

(1) late  2000 NA  0.5GB / 0.45GHz G4     Cube (unsupported CPU speed)

Know Your Toolkit

Much of my life has been spent waiting for a computer to restart. No, thatʼs not a

Windows joke, just an acknowledgment Have Leopard, Will Upgrade ....

Mr. Freestone, you stated that Apple users do not put Leopard on 3 year old systems, a straightforward declarative sentence. We do and I have. It works fine and I consider it an improvement in features and with regards to desktop search (Spotlight) speed.

While I am in the neighborhood, you ask the question about why open sourcers aren't making noises about Apple (and its NeXT predecessor) basing its userland on FreeBSD. One may add and using gcc for its compiler, samba for its Windows Sharing, bash for its shell, python, perl, ruby, and so on, including basing its html rendering on KHTML. There are two answers: one is that there have been people who complain that the give back hasn't matched the use. The other answer is that code is being used as per its license.

It's not that Leopard runs as fast on slower computers as on faster computers.

It is true that Leopard runs faster on the same hardware than older OSs did.  This has always been true.  Each new OS is a speed bump for the same hardware.

You ask a very cogent question there Matt. Why don't the BSD folks get up in arms over Apple making money off of Mach and FreeBSD? Perhaps because Apples left it open source? As in you can download the current Leopard build from the given URL. What's even funnier is that you could (if you wanted to ) build a nearly complete Leopard and the redistribute it, legally. The only core portion of OS X thats closed it Quartz and Finder.

BTW I run Leopard on a 2002 vintage dual 1Ghz G4 PowerMac. Leopard runs just fine. In fact it runs FASTER than Tiger did. This is a feat that Microsoft has never, and probably will never equal. There's never been a version of Windows that did more with less a previous version.

@author : "As for all the support, it's much appreciated, and so are the comments who aren't happy with me.  But let's keep things factual, put the Apple fan boy hated aside and be logical."

Keep things factual?  You should have started off that way.  How deafening is that silence for you now, Matt?  

As a technical "fact" that a CTO missed:  Mac OS always abstracts the hardware. Always.  And Mac OS X gracefully fails when hardware is no longer available or wasn't available at all on a machine.  Macs have always been that way (yes, even pre-X).

You even trot out that old saw that Macs are soooo much more expensive than PCs, when any number of people and orgs on the net have posted comparisons that shoot you down.

Seriously, you're a CTO?  Oh wait, your "[...]enterprise deployments to provide a unified experience" is the antithesis of the Mac way.  Why does it matter than everyone has a unified experience?  Sometimes different users work better with different configurations.  And no, I'm not talking about being able to skin an app.  Wouldn't executives in a company prefer productivity over uniformity?

I upgraded my Quad Core 2.8 GHz Mac Pro with NVidia 8800GT graphics card from Vista Business to Windows XP the other week - runs much better.  

Boot Camp is great - can run either OS on the one machine. Fusion is awesome - can run BOTH OS's simultaneously.

<em>Wow, I think I stirred up the Apple fan boy bee's nest and pissed off all 30 Apple computer owners in the world, and their pissed! :-)  Sorry guys, I had to do it, but it's just a joke, so don't flame me too bad!</em>

Matt, you sound like you're approximately 13 years old. And the avatar doesn't help the impression of immaturity. Of course, the lack of knowledge also doesn't help one bit. One wonders if you might be an imposter, somebody trying to imitate a "computer expert."

Current computer: G4 Powerbook from Feb 2005 which shipped with 10.3 Panther.  10.4 Tiger was significantly faster than 10.3, and 10.5 Leopard was a little bit faster than 10.4 (but a lot more features).

You can't have it both ways:

" I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?  The silence is deafening."

Then you complain when Mac users are not silent:

"Wow, I think I stirred up the Apple fan boy bee's nest and pissed off all 30 Apple computer owners in the world, and their [sic] pissed!"

Show me someone who says 'Macs are not real computers but pretty toys', and I'll show you someone who is simply too dense to understand the Unix command line. I use a Mac because it's the best place for me to develop websites within a Unix environment.

@hominid: never was a username more apt.

I was going to post a reply from my wife's 2004 iBook G4 (which is happily running Leopard), but she's too busy editing her latest recording with Garageband (while she runs 10 other apps in the background and switches back and forth). So I posted it from my MacBook instead (where I'm just as happy doing much less).

Research, my friend, research. Otherwise:

Your butt >> (__*__) <{blah blah blah} << Your words

I'm running my Mac/PC home office just fine, with all Macs running Leopard (even the 4-year-old ones), and the PC running XP SP2. I won't let Vista within 10 feet of any of my hardware, ever. XP meets my needs just fine, doesn't slow everything down to a crawl (like Vista does even on brand-spanking-new systems), and its interface doesn't look like someone's aborted attempt to replicate candy bar translucency. I've downgraded family and friends from Vista to XP SP2, not just on a whim but because Vista was simply unworkable on their brand new computers.

On one point you are right. Vista will not degrade its own needs gracefully to older systems. Heck, it can't even run properly on *new* ones without gimping their performance. But please, before you dip your brush into the "Vista problem bucket" and start painting Apple and Mac OS X with the same colors, try doing the leg work necessary to substantiate your claims. If you don't (as was the case here) you just come off as an ignorant Microsoft fanboy, and many people (like me) won't make the mistake of coming to read your thoughts again.

I was running Leopard on a 12" PowerBook G4 until recently and the performance was excellent. I'm a college senior now, and I bought that PowerBook summer before I started college so it was 3 1/2 years old running Leopard.

At my work, I'm running Leopard on two 1.8 ghz PowerMac G5s which were bought in Late 2004 and it runs great. You can do the math on those.

OK, I'll pile on -- I'm writing this on my January 2005 G4 Powerbook, which has been running Leopard quite nicely for the past several months. Note that this not only not the Mac's current CPU architecture, it's the not even the latest generation of the old CPU! I have a G4 iMac as well, which also runs Leopard.

For those interested in more technical details on OS X's UNIX underpinnings (and for those who do actual research before writing stuff like this), I ran across this tech doc on Apple's site that's worth a read:

images.apple.com/.../L355785C_UNIX_TB.pdf

Well. Not much to say about Vista. Never used it and never will. But you are so far off base about Mac stuff that you should really think about just deleting it from your post. I've installed Leopard on a G5 iMac and 2 dual G5 PowerMacs (both more than 3 years old), and I have no complaints at all. If anything, each release of Mac OS X makes older hardware feel like it's running faster than with previous version. My advice: stick with Windows commentary (stuff you obviously know something about) and stay away from  off-the-cuff Mac comments (stuff you obviously are beyond clueless about).

I'm typing this using Leopard on a four year old powerbook, and it works really well with all the bells and whistles.

Do you even bother to research anything before you write?

The real irony is that a Vista "fan" - Vista being one of the worst OS's Microsoft has ever released - getting his jollies off of calling Mac users calling out his very shallow attempt to dis Leopard "fan boys". Funny stuff.

Tell me, what makes a Windows "apologist" any better than an Apple "fan boy"?

One could argue that Windows users suffer from a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome.

To your original point: I'm currently running Leopard on a Mac Mini with a 1.25 PPC G4 (2004) without problems. Sure, it's slower than my MacBook dual 2.0 (Intel-based, in case you didn't know), but it's by no means unusable.

You REALLY should stick to blogging about stuff you know.

BTW, being called a "fan boy" by a Windows user is like being called an alcoholic by a crackhead. ;-)

"Favorite hobbies are Xbox 360, firearms, martial arts and football."

You ought to make spelling and grammar hobbies of yours, too, especi My God, you can't write to save your life. "Elloquent"? "Their" for "They're"? "Mac’s" instead of "Macs"? "It's" when it should be "its"? "Dissension" when you mean to say "dissent"?

If you can't get these basic elements of writing straight, you're already starting out on a flawed foundation. Combined with your obvious lack of background knowledge on the very subject you've chosen to write about, not to mention the twisted arguments you use to defend your ignorance, you ought to stick with the Xbox games and leave journo-blogging to others who are a tad more competent. Please.

You are dead wrong about Mac - I run two computers dating from 2003 and 2004 with Leopard (like in non-Intel models even). I know lot's of other people that does so too. All three-year old Macs run more than fine with Leopard, most a bit quicker than under previous OSes. So get your facts straight, as this more than undermines your main point in the story.

Please get a clue. OS X Leopard runs perfectly well on my old G4 Powerbook, in fact it is smoother and snappier then the previous version, and is in no way less usable then Leopord on my brand new iMac.

I have the same kind of experiences with Linux. Unless there is really a giant leap in technology leveraging a brand new generation of hardware, new versions tend do be better, snappier.

Windows is the exception. The performance drop on not-so-old machines is a matter of a) incompetence, and b) not understanding the zeitgeist. The days of always constantly new hardware are over for everybody except hardcore PC-gamers.

I do agree Windows users should stop whining. Vista is Windows-strategy the way it has always been, and if you like Windows, Vista is an improvement. If you don't like it, just stop using Windows. I seriously don't get it, if you don't like Ford cars or Sony televisions, you don't keep buying them either?

My 2 € cents (reluctantly), just to add another data point:

I and my close relatives are running Leopard on about a dozen old Macs (older than 3 years). Overall, those machines run better and faster than with Tiger. They haven't been upgraded in any way other than making sure they have decent amounts of RAM (768MB or more).

As for the rest, I can only concur. Fanboyism goes both ways. Stating facts is not fanboyism. Publishing unresearched incorrect statements is.

JD

(By the way, I make a living helping out people running Windows machine).

1 - write a negative blog post without research about apple

2 - get shitloads of responces from mac users pointing out you are wrong.

3 - say those are "fanboys"

4 - ????

5 - profit!

Q: Why so many responses from "fanboys"?

A: Because we run Microsoft OSes on our Macs (both Intel and IBM chipsets) and we like to set facts straight.

Q: Using the latest OS from Apple on older Macs?

A: All the time, without hesitation - on nearly all machines that can handle it. And most Apple Corporation computers can the latest OS back 7+ years. And we are productive.

As a former MCSE and IT manager for PC shops, I sell Macs and Xserve systems on my website.  I like selling computer equipment I do not have to babysit and maintain.

The best thing to happen to Apple Corporation was Vista. And each point in "marketshare" increase is another $1.5 billion USD in Apple's pocket. While competitor's sales are declining, Apple's sales are increasing even during this Recession. The best thing Apple did was allow the MS OS capability on Macs. It smooths the transition. Many of my relatives and friends have moved to Macs. I'd like to think I had something to do with it. Check out our magazine at http://www.maccompanion.com

Apple makes perhaps the best overall platform for OSes. And Vista runs better on Macs than on competing computer platforms. That is why you get so many "Mac" responses to this drivel you posted online. That is why we sell Macs to businesses. It is also poetic justice to IT departments that refuse to use productivity machines to further their enterprise operations.

If you are going to try and insult someone you should at least proofread your post.  "their pissed" should be "they're" as in "they are." Now i understand that you are spending all your time trying to get your peripheral devices to work in Vista but please pick up a grammar book once in a while.

>>Wow, I think I stirred up the Apple fan boy bee's nest and pissed off all 30 Apple computer owners in the world, and their pissed! :-)  Sorry guys, I had to do it, but it's just a joke, so don't flame me too bad!<<

Hey, you already got pretty badly worked over at www.bynkii.com/.../oh_lord_here_we_go_again.html

One more question though--why wouldn't Apple want to sell upgrade OS system discs to existing hardware owners when it's one of the most high-margin items they sell?

What a doofus.

I am not sure how to write a reasoned logical comment that disagrees with your post without being accused of being a "fanboy" and losing my temper, however

1. I hope you realise that your comment about Leopard not running on old hardware was just plain wrong. On its release Leopard made record sales, so I would guess that a fair number of people have installed it on old hardware. Compare and contrast with the brand new PCs sold with "Vista capable" stickers that could only run Vista with Aero disabled.

2.You day that people only criticise Vista because it is fashionable to do so. I agree with you insofar as Vista is not as disastrously horrible as some of the criticism might lead you to believe. It's stable and can, on powerful enough hardware, look quite handsome. But (and this is a big but), for an OS that has taken 5 years, it really is not much of an advance on XP, and certainly insufficient to justify the pain and expense of upgrading. Significantly most of the serious criticism did not occur on its launch, when it was given fair "first impressions" type reviews, but only later on as people have got to know it in detail and become frustrated with its many glitches and inconsistencies. I refer you in particular to this analysis from a frustrated developer :-

arstechnica.com/.../microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.ars

and in particular his criticism of how Vista perpetuates the bad design decisions and inconsistent behaviour of previous iterations of Windows. What is the point of such a long gestation period if little thought is given to how core elements of the OS should behave, and to make them consistent with each other?

In the end Vista feels too much like many other MS upgrades, where a few features and a coat of new paint are slapped onto the creaky carcass of the previous version. I hope the next version of Windows is more carefully considered at every level.

As you can probably tell, I use Windows XP, Vista and OS X, though obviously very much prefer OS X. If you think that makes me a fanboy, I'll have to be flattered, as at 58 years of age, it's a while since anyone accused me of youthful enthusiasm!

>I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?

I'm use a Mac PowerBook G4 that my wife got in December 2003. I installed Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) on it last Month and have not had a single problem. I do not have a single performance complaint.

That's a 5-year old Mac. I'm so happy that I'm getting ready to install it on my 3-year old iMac G5.

I generally respect people's opinions, but not all opinions are valid. Some are just wrong.

Since your knowledge of the Mac platform is profoundly lacking, your arguments using Mac OS X in defense of Vista are specious. This entire blog entry is a testament to your ignorance.

OK. I haven't used Vista except for several seconds in a Best Buy.

I love my Mac. I'll never replace it with a machine running MS software. I think much of what's been said about Apple on here is completely incorrect.

My biggest problem, though, is that this post tries to justify Vista by comparing it to something else. Justify it on its merits, and I'd be willing to check it out and give it a chance. I'm not so foolish that I can't see some of the efforts that wings of MS are gradually making to be more "worth it" to the user (the IE8 team comes to mind).

Give me reasons to try Vista, and I'll try it. Giving me reasons to dislike Apple's way of doing things and I'll chuckle, because I'm already enjoying Apple's way of doing things.

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Actually Matt... you reply that in your article you only say that Leopard is DESIGNED to run on newer than three year hardware... that's not true. What you say is, "I ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?  The silence is deafening."

Well by the replies here I would say you really are giving us no more than your opinion. In YOUR house the silence may be deafening, but here at our OFFICE I have to tell you that we actually just took one of our departments backward from the crap HP's running XP they were using to OLDER, in-storage iMac G4's from well more than 3 years ago. Installed Leopard on them all. We're NOT talking upgraded PowerMac G5 towers with processor upgrades here Matt. We're talking old non-upgradable iMac G4s running Leopard, some with less than a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM in them. And I'll tell you something else... those users couldn't be happier. ALL of them. We did an IT survey (where they LOVE to complain usually) and every single one returned a positive response.

BTW... I'm not a Mac fan boy. I'm an IT professional that has enough on my plate that I have no time to waste managing the countless little things that Windows requires. Ever setup side by side a Mac and a PC and configured them? We did. I took our best Windows tech vs. me (and I was still getting used to the Mac). I was done in less than half the time. How big are we? Well... I can't tell ya where I work because we spend about $250K a year on Microsoft Licensing alone. I won't even get INTO the issues we're having with Vista. We actually like XP. The Mac still kicks it's butt.

I'll only tell you this. From my chair in the real world you couldn't be more wrong.

Matt:

You are woefully misinformed about Macs and Mac users.

I'm running Leopard 10.5.2 on Macs 5-8 years old:

2003 eMac 1GHz (no mods)

2001 PowerMac G4 867MHz (c. 2002 64MB video card)

2000 PowerMac G4 450MHz (c. 2001 32MB video card)

2000 G4 Cube (c. 2004 128MB video card).

Each of these machines has also run OS 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4. With 10.4 and 10.5's dependence on Core Image video, I spent ~$150 on upgrading video cards in the last few years.

If you want to learn about how many Mac users with old hardware upgrade their OS, check out www.lowendmac.com

Not sure if this has been mentioned in all the talk about monopolies, but, it isn't actually illegal to have one. It's just illegal to abuse your customers with it!

Nice article.  Write opinion piece that  displays lack of knowledgeshows and/or extreme OS bias.  Drive up page views, laugh all the way to the bank.

Add me to the list of those who have deployed Leopard on several >3 year old machines with corresponding INCREASES in performance.  My organization (federal government agency) still hasn't signed off on installing Vista (new computers must be "downgraded" to XP).

Chief Technology Officer of what?  Even my facility's relatively inept IT staff wouldn't say something this...misinformed.

I have 10.5 running on my G5 single 1.6, and I have nothing but love for this system, if nothing a renewed favor for this machine running faster with 10.5 than it did with 10.4, so I have a more reliable machine, that runs faster in all aspects.

Matt Freestone shames himself with his lack of comprehension. His weak argument about older Macs and uprades - the answer is a clear - stock Macs from five years ago can run Leopard just fine. Maybe some need a GPU upgrade (did you even know that was possible?) to get snappy performance. Same thing with Vista.

The problem here is that the legitimate griping about the failure that is Vista hurts so bad he has to strike out a the platform that is making Vista look so bad for all of the reasons that are there - Microsoft has a mess of code - even after it was re-written. They have a massive market that have to be backwards compatible to that Apple isn't. And yet Apple is better at it than they are. Apple introduces new technologies, and they work fine on much older machines than Vista's new technologies work on, on the PC side.

Get over it Freestone. Apple is outclassing Microsoft. It's not like they're the only ones.

Leopard runs fine on my 500 Mhz Cube, going on 8 years old.

" I think that funny because I never once said that old Mac’s are slow.  I simply said that a new OS, Leopard, was designed to run on the latest hardware, and would therefore run slower on older Macs."

The statement is kind of flawed. Any OS running on Anything older is going to be slower. The Mac users are saying that on the same hardware, upgrades to OS X are not impacting performance. And in some cases even improving the performance.

Not sure how that is with W2K, XP, and Vista though. Perhaps you have some experience with upgrading Windows on existing PC hardware. Do you gain performance moving from W2K to XP / XP to Vista?

"Apple makes 50% of it's profit from the hardware"

Citation needed. Or did you just pull that figure out of your a**?

" ask you, how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac, and install Leopard on it?"

<Raised hand> 2002 G4 Works great. Also, prior to OSX, Apple supported systems that were 10 years old or more. I think system 7.6 (releases 1997) was the first version that wouldn't run on a 1986 Mac Plus. Each OSX version has been FASTER on the same hardware. It's only Micro$oft operating systems that get more sluggish.

Please do your research. Articles like this only start flame wars.

Garbage, if you are going to write about the Mac then do some research and get your facts right.

I'm running Leopard just fine on a 1999 AGP G4, granted I have upgraded the processor to 1.25Ghz and installed a better video card and maxed out the RAM but all this was done way back when OSX was first introduced.  Every major upgrade to OSX has performed better each time. What version of Windows can you run on a 9 year old PC?  

Complete and utter ignorant drivel. This flamebait isn't even worth discussing -- that's how clueless the author is on this topic.

Totally disgusting. Matt should be ashamed.

Sorry, but just seeing someone in an (alleged) responsible position consistently writing THEIR when he means THEY'RE and YOUR when he means YOU'RE is enough for me to know the man never even went to the trouble of getting a decent BASIC education... so why bother with an actual FACTUAL and not "why bother researching before I blather? I can always yell the so utterly worn, sad and prepubescent shibboleth 'ha haaa, stupid FANBOI!!' when called on my brainfarts..." point of view, which only shows the complete inability to recognize one's own shortcomings, but rather the effort to not have to address them like a grown-up.

(It's a given that he could actually consider FIREARMS a HOBBY. How wonderfully American of you... bravo!)

Very sad state of affair's... especially for the company that gives this man any sort of actual responsibility.

(wonder how long this is gonna stay up? :-D)

"So, children, please stop throwing your temper tantrums.  Stop picking on Vista just because everyone else is."

Well said, Fan[atic]s on both sides of Macs & PCs aren't always well informed. But there are many "half truth's and sometimes out right misstatements" in your article about Macs as well...

I think you'd be interested in reading some constructive criticism about Windows from a developer's point of view:

<a href="arstechnica.com/.../a>

<a href="arstechnica.com/.../a>

> how many Apple users do you know that own a 3 year old Mac,

> and install Leopard on it? The silence is deafening"

This is typed on a six year old Mac - a G4 MDD - with Leopard on it. Because of the inadequacy of the video card on these models, Core Image runs in software not hardware so it can act a little sleepy sometimes, but it did that on Tiger too.

Me, I've given up on Vista (after it gave up on me) - Windows Server 2008 FTW!

Anyway, if you want to make Vista look good shouldn't you shout about it's wonderful features, not slam the opposition? Oh, wait, now the silence really _is_ deafening..

Hey Matt... 1996 called. It wants its Mac humor back (30 Mac owners... sure, ignore the fact the Apple's market share is increasing every quarter).

I know this may be hard to believe, but every OS X upgrade I've used has actually been faster on my G4.

Vista was the best thing to happen to Apple.

My five installs of Leopard (hmmm, Family Pack, $199, five computers legit....is there a Vista pack like that?) range from a 2-year old MacPro to a 4+ year old iMac - no problems on any and NO NEED to buy new hardware.  Who does the fact-checking on your column?

"Why aren't OpenSourcers outraged by Apple's use of an Open source OS for their own proprietary and monetary gains?"

perhaps because Apple gives back , having an open source core itself, Darwin.

I'll add my annecdote to the Apple upgrade/new hardware debate.

Upgraded my 2005 Dell GX280 P4 3.2Ghz, 2GB RAM to Vista Ulimate, ran ok, but a month later reverted to XP Pro, today on SP3.

My 2005 iMac G5 2Ghz, 2GB RAM came with Tiger, I upgraded to Leopard in October 2007.  

My 2004 PowerBook 12" 1.33Ghz  1.25GB RAM came with Panther, I upgraded Tiger in 2005 and again to Leopard in October 2007.  

My 1999 clamshell iBook 366Mhz  576MB RAM came with OS9, I upgraded to Puma, Jaguar and Panther in turn and to Tiger in 2005.  That's four upgrades.

nuff said.

Matt,

For what it's worth, I'm happily running Leopard on an early 2001 vintage PowerMac G4 (733 Digital Audio).  It ran OS9 when I pursched it.  Installation of Leopard on this machine is not supported by Apple, but it runs fine.  It was my primary machine until I "inherited" and repaired my son's '07 model MacBook Pro with busted screen last fall.  Leopard is installed on the PMG4 primarily for the high quality file sharing.  It makes it a very easy to maintain family file server.  And it is rock solid.  Since it came stock with gigabit ethernet (nice for an 01 vintage machine), the file sharing performance is fantastic.  The other Leopard features (screen sharing, time machine) are gravy.  Oh, and it can still boot up OS9.

I still use the machine for other routine tasks.  It shares a keyboard and screens with the MacBook Pro (when "docked") and my Vista PC.

Regarding Vista... while others can gripe about the bugs and lack of drivers, my main gripes remain the poor design.  Microsoft's understanding of human factors is still abysmal.  The User Account Control implementation (a supposed Vista security improvement) is so obtrusive, I've had it turned off for months.  Simplicity in the design and organization of Control Panels and Dialog Boxes still eludes Microsoft.  Too many options, with needed options buried in the hierarchy or located somewhere totally unexpected.

Contrary to your story, I've found Apple's record of implementing new OSes that support older hardware to be superb.  I've implemented versions of OSX on many machines that supposedly were not adequate for the task (Rev B iMacs, the original iBook). With additional memory from 3rd party suppliers these machines ran versions of OSX just fine.

I suggest that you stick to writing about subject you know.

Well, my G4 Tower (according to an app that tells the time and place of manufacture) made on Feb 18, 2002 runs leopard very nicely thank you. Matter of fact, I have not even considered replacing this computer, as it runs everything I need quite nicely, even more modern apps like Office 2008, and the newest version of Photoshop elements. My old 2005 vintage ibook G4 runs leopard very nicely too. I am not sure where you got your information, but frankly, its just plain wrong! Will I upgrade in time? Of course! But its sure not because of Leopard! Of course, I have a Dell edge server that is vintage 2002 also, that is dual booting nicely with either Linux or XP, and it runs fine too. Doubt if Vista would run well on that, but....since its not my everyday computer, I doubt seriously if I will try to upgrade it in the near future.

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How's this for deafening silence? I own a 41/2 year old Apple PowerBook G4 (1.25 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 90 GB HD) and I am running OS X 10.5.2 Leopard WITH NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER! Thanks.

I'm running Leopard on:

2002 Quicksilver PowerMac

2003 12" Powerbook G4

2005 17" Powerbook G4

and, you sir, are wrong.

Yea, sounds to me like a certain "journalist" didn't learn much about research and fact finding.  Or maybe a certain "journalist" got paid a little under the table by a certain....ahhhh.......Major Monopolistic Apple copying company?

Are you smoking crack?

Obviously you must have never used a Mac in your life. I have an older G4 Mac Mini, that is at least 3 years old, and I installed Apple's Leopard (OS 10.5) without any problem, and hey guess what it works. I don't have any problems like I experience on the PC that I have to use at work running Windows XP.

Where do you get your information, Apple OS not backward compatible... Boy are you so wrong... True when Apple came out with OS 10 it would not run on Mac's with a PPC 604 or order processor, it had to be a G3 or higher. But even so I have never had any problem installing the latest Apple OS on my Mac, be it installing OS 9 on my old PowerComputing PowerCenter 150 with a 603 processor, or even installing Leopard on my slightly old G4 Mac Mini. In fact everything just worked, printer, modems, graphics, sound card, even if they were original equipment that was over 6 years old, they worked just fine under the new OS.

So put down the crack-pipe, and the airplane glue, and grow up.

I'm writing in a:

PowerMac G4 867 Mhz (2001 Quick silver)

32 Mb Nvidia Graphics

120 GB 7200 rpm HDD

1 GB RAM

Leopard 10.5.2 (Since Jaguar everthing is better with each new OS version. )

BTW I've also like (not hate) Windows XP, I used to have 2 machines ( A Mac an a XP-PC working side by side) Both worked fine but lets face it, Windows machines loose a lot with all the crapware ("options"?), malware, virus, etc that comes from out there. Windows it's like an expensive whore, no matter how much you expend on it tryin' to protect it, you never know what new disease she's gonna get. In the meanwhile a Mac just give's you more peace of mind. Not perfect but by far more reliable.

Don't consider myself an apple fanboy but I'm very happy to choose a Mac over a PC.

PS: Have like 5 friends with powerful brand new laptops (with Vista on it) switching back to XP after months trying to get used to the new Windows.

Just in case you're not getting it yet, here's one more user running Leopard on a five year old Mac.

I appreciate that going to bat for Vista isn't easy, but you can do better than this, surely?

Also: you can't write. You should stop doing it.

Got a mini 1.5yr old mini. Leopard is noticably slower and has more bugs that Tiger did.  Is it usable- Yes. Stable-Yes. Slower-YES.

Vista was designed for hardware that isn't here today.  XP was the same way.  People complained then but aren't now becauase the hardware had caught up.  

Vista is a good OS, a worthy replacement of XP.  

I'm also done giving money to Apple.  Their advertisement are blantant lies.  300 new features in Leopard, please.  A dozen at most the people would care about.

There is a huge double standard on Microsoft now.

Matt ~

I'm not one to take up a banner on one's opinion, but I do wish you'd have taken the time to research, unless of course you just wanted to stir the pot.  And that you have.  I'm a multi-Mac man running an almost ten year old Mac G3 tower with Panther.  Not the latest but, again, it's ten years old.  Other than that machine, all my other Macs have been Leopardized.  They run beautifully.  So I ask you this?  Why do companies request to have an older version of Windows put on their new system?  Has that happened in the Mac world?  I highly doubt it.  As you stated, Apple makes both the hardware and the software.  That gives them no need to require hardware updates because they know what will work and what won't.  

So stop blaming the Mac for your Windows issue.  It only makes you look foolish and petty.  And really, spend a few days with a new Mac and then post a legitimate review of the Mac.

Well I thought I would chime and say that I too am running leopard on a 3 year old G4 powerbook and it run great. Obviously you didn't do much research before you posted this. And as you can see by the many many many mac users that have posted here about there 3+ year old macs running leopard, you silence is understandable.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that I too installed Leopard on a 733MHz G4 which isn't even officially SUPPORTED, which meant I had to do it via a newer machine via Target-Disk Mode (which you wouldn't know anything about, that's obvious) because I had to do a reinstall and couldn't find my Tiger DVD... mind you, this is a machine from JANUARY *2001*!! I thought it would only be temp, but have actually left it running on Leopard because I was AMAZED at how well (QuickView, again something you wouldn't know about, and all!) it performed. That's why I personally don't actually get why it ISN'T officially on the compatibility list!

Cry your stale "FANBOY!" all you want. Unfortunately for you, it doesn't change DIDDLY about the FACTS, bud.

Just simply ADMITTING to your utter lack of knowledge and therefore UNfactual, ad hominem blathering would have left you at least with SOME face, but you choose the wimpy "FANBOY!" bullshit cop-out. Sad.

This report is not from an Apple fanboy, but a Macintosh using grandmother geek.

I help clients from around the world with their Macs via remote control software (Mac Helpmate).

Mac OS X 10.5 runs just fine--in fact extremely well -- on Apple Hardware that is was introduced in 2002. The best part is it even looks great.

You may know PCs, but you sure don't know Macs! You may want to do a little reading on the Apple discussion boards before you write your next article about Macs and the operating systems they can run.

I do not - and have never - owned a PC. Feel free to discuss PC issues and leave Mac discussions to those of us who use them!

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er, os x leopard can be installed on anything as old as a 7-10 year old mac (depending on the state of the product).

since i had my macbook pro? 1 kernel panic, which was my fault (almost every app in my dock was running at the same time).

oh and anyone who thinks that apps are limited? www.freemacware.com

masses of apps and utilities to suit the mac user.

i know that i am gonna be called a fangirl, but.....erm......dont care. if im a fangirl for anything it is nintendo handhelds (had every handheld except the gb micro).

wish id bought a mac years ago now...

i had no beef with xp, which was a nice os. but vista was instability city. i couldn't open a flipping word doc without some problem occurring. and er considering it was on a brand new pc, i was not happy. its gonna need a lot of work before it becomes anywhere near as stable as its predecessor.

Just the thing to keep me awake late at night. It's really entertaining to have Mac users and Windows users argue over whose OS is better or whether or not an apostrophe might have been appropriate. If it causes so much frustration, just stop using the silly thing - common sense agree?

I can not believe that a person with the smarts that I beleive you have do not now the difference between a person just starting out in computers  and one thats have been around for a long TIME.VISTA is crapt!!!

PS You still did not answer my question. HOW TO ROTATE VISTA DESKTOP 90 Degrees???

Some people need to lay off and think about the windows xp when it first came even one said they where not going to get it. Now what it is everywhere. Also windows xp was ful bugs at the beaginnering. Now it is a very smooth operateing system. Plus macs you do need to one the right equipment o use the mac operating system properly? We need. To stop and just let the bugs work it self out. Thanks!!!!!

Vista is a big turd waiting to be flushed, but the good part is removing it has become big for my pocket book just done three more today. get over it fan boy it's crap

I didn't read all the posts

but I love Microsoft so much

I have Vista and it's more stable XP

although I was wandering why they made Vista for?

because XP was just fine!

oh well and people who love Microsoft

should not say thing back to others who hate Microsoft

because anything "Microsoft" is bad thats what they seem to

think all the time. But Its Because "I'm jealous that should have been signing that billion dollar contract and awards for the best OS"

(sigh...)

This is SOOOO like the Atari - Comodore flame-wars that were popular in the '80's.

Far be it from me to say that M$ is inherently crapola or Mac/Apple is the hottest thing since sliced bread.  However, I would like to toss my two centavos/kopeks/etc. into the fray.

First of all - both Microsoft, (and by definition), Windows is crippled by the " 'x86 syndrome".

I was working in electronics engineering back when Intel released the 8080.  For it's time - it was a hot smokin' weapon.  However - from an implementation point of view - it was a pain - so they replaced it with the 8085 - better in some ways, worse in others.  (The multiplexed data/address buss had engineers pulling the hair out of their heads for a while...)

The 8080/8085 (et.al.) processors spawned a whole generation of look-alikes, up-to and including the legendary Z-80 processor by Zilog.  Why Z-*80*? - it was built using the same basic architecture as the 8080 base.

Then came the 8086 - (and 8088 for the cheaper crowd).

Thence the '286, '386, and the '486 and beyond.

One thing nobody seems to mention - or perhaps even know - is that ALL these processors are backwards compatable - all the way back to the 8080.  Assuming the interrupt calls and api stuff is set right, 8080 assembly code from the '80's will run just nicely on your AMD Phenom Quad-Core. (in REAL mode...)

The original decision to do this - seemingly stupid - obsession with backward compatability was due to the fact that - at the time these processors were developed, much software was "custom" written for specific users or industries.  At a hideous cost I might add.  So many users - business users - wanted to "protect" their investments in software.  Ergo, compatibility.

Apple - and a number of other manufacturers who didn't make it this far - abandoned this and went with the 68000 series from Motorola - and thence to the PPC - which has a totally different architecture.  And doesn't give a damn about compatability with the 8080 and it's ilk.  Because of this - they were not constrained by the users who spent huge bucks on a Zilog based S-100 system running CPM - and even larger bucks on custom software!

I remember the original Mac - tiny little ***, one 1.44 floppy drive and a tiny little b/w screen and a one-button mouse.  Cost thousands!  Was as sharp as a tack and hot as a pistol.  I loved it, it was soooo cute!!

Businesses, however, ran PC's, and since (for me) that's were the money was, that's where I stayed.

--------------------------------------------------------

Jump forward to the present.

Microsoft is still stuck with the legacy Intel processor architecture.  It is also stuck with legacy code that dates back to DOS 1.0 - and CPM before that....

I am sure that Microsoft could - if it wanted to - come out with a completly new O/S - a completely new paradigm - something that takes current processor capabilities and runs with them - but they'd get fried by everyone who is pissed because their original DOS copies of DOOM or Castle Wolfenstein (which work just fine under XP or Vista), fail to run.

A question for the Mac people:  How many of you folks have apps that go back to the original Mac - that you still use?  Or that you COULD still use?  Maybe I'm wrong - I'm NOT a Mac guru, but I'd be willing to bet that there are damn few.

Microsoft - and the equipment it the O/S's work on - maintain a phenominal amount of compatability all the way back to the early days of cave-men.  (I have a DOS based PCB layout tool that I - periodically - dig out and use.  Still works.  Still attaches to any printer in my printer setup list, and still prints beautiful 8.5x11 Mylar contact originals for any hobby boards I may want to cut - or Gerber files for ones I outsource.)

This comes with a price.

Microsoft's Operating Systems aren't nearly as whizz-bang as some of the others because of this.

Linux doesn't have to worry about it - the Linux crowd can say "OK - we're going to whole-hog drop support for libc and any apps written with that as a dependancy, and force everyone to re-compile using gcc or glibc (or something else)"

If you don't like it, don't run it, right?

If you were a fortune-500 company and YOUR operating system vendor said that - as of today - you'll have to stop using 90% of your software and have all of it re-compiled using totally different tools. (and re-debuged, etc.)....  You'd have fits too.

Apple gets away with this for the reason Linux does - their user base is much smaller.  (and there is the "elitist" and "religious" aspect of a minority system.... :-) )

M$'s core crowd is the enterprise group.  Just about every company you name runs some version of Windows.  And that gives M$ a lot less "wiggle room" to play games.

Mac vs Windows:

IMHO - that's like Mac vs OpenVMS, or Mac vs Linux, or whatever.

These operating systems were written for different crowds with different needs - it is only now that we're seeing a convergence of these - so they're going to be inherently different.

Bashing Mac because it's not like Windows - or Windows because it's not like Mac is like bashing an F4-Phantom (or an A-10 Wart Hog), because it's not an F-18.  (and yes, I know a number of people who are still passionately attached to the F-14 Tomcat.)

I've used both - more Windows than Mac - but I've done both.

Since I "cut my teeth" on the Windows stuff - I know it a lot better and (when I use the Mac with OS-X), it feels clumsy and kludgy by comparison - but that's my lack of familiarity talking.

Vista *DOES* have it's shortcomings - and yes, I think there are things that could have been (and should have been) thought out more carefully...  But I remember when XP came out in the latter days of the '90's - I hated it for being the PIG it was compared to W2k.  Driver and app support SUCKED!  And the "new" interface paradigm - it was AWFUL!!!

But, once the 3rd party people got on board with updated drivers, and the (IMHO) elegent simplicity of the XP desktop became more familiar, it wasn't a bad system.  I still run it - along with W2k, (etc.)

Vista when it first came out ran like a PIG - because of the same reasons - you take drivers and apps written for XP and load them in Vista, and it has to do handsprings to adapt.  Now we're seeing stuff written with Vista in mind - and it's gettin' pretty darn slick.

There are still glitches while apps and programs adapt - I have a Compaq laptop running both 32 and 64 bit versions of both XP and Vista. (Quad-boot system)

Just for the record - stuff written for the 32 bit version of Vista work quite well on Vista 64, thank you very much - whereas my 64 bit version of XP won't run nearly as much stuff from my 32 bit XP collection...  (oh, the 32 bit XP stuff runs just fine on 64 bit Vista...)

Re:  The UAC.

Most people seem to hate it.  I think it's one of the best things to happen to a Microsoft O/S.

Example:  My wife's computer is XP based, and I have her set up as a "limited rights" user (standard-mode in Vista) so she can't accidentally shoot herself in the foot.

I went to install Norton 360 on her box - and because XP is sensitive to user context, I had to log in as Admin, change her account to an admin level account, log out as admin, log in as her, install - configure - test - and approve the install, log out as her, log in as Admin, drop her back to limited rights, log back in as her, verify it still works, etc.

And if I (accidentally) get anything wrong - it's back to square one for me bucko!!

If I want to change any settings (in Norton 360, for example), I cannot just "run-as" because the context created is NOT truly administrative.

In Vista on the other hand, installer automatically get Admin crecdentials (but you have to approve the install - no silent bullshit here!).  If I want to admin something within her account context that needs Admin rights - I get the UAC, type in my Admin password, and I can do what I need to do.  Period.

If I need a more "global" admin access - I can open a command window, or windows explorer session, "As Admin".  It is a rare day when I have to actually muck with a user's base privelege level in Vista.

Is the UAC annoying - well, yes - especially if you aren't used to it - and are used to running your machine as ROOT all the time (which is a security nightmare....).  If you're a more restricted user (and - in MY experience, most of the Mac users I know run as Admin equivelents - essentially as ROOT), it's not any more annoying than SUDO.

In conclusion - I really don't think Vista is nearly as bad as most people make it out to be.  Mac people hate it, and Windows people think the Mac is a kludge too - but that's the way Religeous Wars have been since Cain and Able.

I think that - once Vista has gotten some mileage on it - it'll turn out to be a pretty slick piece of work.

What say ye?

Jim

Just thought I'd mention one HUGE ERROR in your article.  I have a 6 year old Apple laptop - a 1 Ghz PowerBook G4.  And it runs Leopard like a champ.  Yes, the latest version including all the bells and whistles.  

I have a 6 month old PC that won't run Vista worth a crap.  I switched to Ubuntu, and it runs way better, and still has lots of the pretty effects that Vista supporters are so fond of.

And finally, regarding your rant about Apple releasing betas.  At least they acknowledge what they're doing, and fix the problems quickly.  Microsoft releases a key product like Vista without even delivering what they promised, and takes years to fix the bugs.  How can you fault Apple for calling something a beta and fixing it and yet support the MS model?  

Sure, there are examples of both Vista and 10.5 running acceptably on older hardware.  Some claim Vista runs acceptably using a P3.  The question is, what is the gap between running acceptably and running optimally?  A couple of posters have been good enough to acknowledge that 10.5 runs on a G4 with 512 MB RAM - with the qualifier that it doesn't run fully featured or very fast.  That's about the same as Vista Basic and 512 MB RAM.  For my G5, I upgraded the RAM to 1 GB to get the speed that I considered functional.  With the advent of the Intel Macs, one of the comments in Mac forums was how much better 10.4 was running than on the G4s and G5s.    There were comments that 10.3 hit the sweet spot for speed, and that more processor power was needed for 10.4.    That's a little different story than in these posts.  Now that the wagons are circled, none of that is acknowledged.  In war, truth is the first casualty.  

Microsoft has always had a harder path to take than a complete in house product like Mac.  I think Mac makes a good product but to slam Vista the way they have is really pathetic.  I have posted almost the same comments as Matt on the Tech Republic and have had the same Mac Kool-aid drinkers foam at the mouth.  Sometimes being an advocate just isn't cool enough in this world of cynics.

I purchased a new PC last summer (2007) with factory installed Vista and have never enjoyed such speed and stability before.  Everytime I would hear people bashing Vista I would wonder how could that be.  Now it is all making sense, the majority of these folks have installed Vista onto a PC with old hardware.

I am amazed that the writer of the article has the audacity to state that people "pick" on Vista simply because others started it first.  100% of the people that I know that own or have owned Vista hates their computer now.  

I have always thought that Apples were more expensive, but thanks to Vista and it not being compatible with older software lead me to my first Apple, and the amount of money that I have saved from not have to fix my computer every other day is phenomenal!  I now have saved enough money to be able to dump all my PC and have switched the entire company over to Mac.  Now exponentially I am saving money on IT costs and computer repair.  How is reality like this bashing Vista?  It simply is the best thing Microsoft has done to let people make the switch to Apple.  

I kicked Windows to the curb 10 years ago and have not regretted it for even a nanosecond, so I cannot say anything about Vista personally.  But I have talked to many Windows fanboys in the past couple of years and they all said they hated Vista and were sticking with XP.  This is from people that love Microsoft and Windows.  The only person I have talked to that said he likes Vista was a salesman in the computer dept. at an office supply store.

Even if I liked Windows (which I don't) I would never use Vista because of all the DRM and Monitoring what you are doing crap that is in it.  I like to be the one in control of what my machine is doing.  Who is really in control of your machine?  Do you like the idea that Microsoft can cripple your machine anytime they think you are doing something they don't like?

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Even if I liked Windows (which I don't) I would never use Vista because of all the DRM and Monitoring what you are doing crap that is in it.  I

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Always using foul language eh folks?

DRMs? you guys hack other peoples computers

thanking it is funny on April fools day I hate that day

its useless day, now back on topic. so DRMs should be added

because people like to steal other peoples work,

think of it you write a hot new game then someone

steals it then resales claiming they own it

they may even go as far as sueing you pretending you stole it from them! when DRMs could have stop them from doing so.

I was an ealy adopter of Vista Ultimate and have never had problems with it at all except for some update issues that were esaily fixed buy turning off autoupdate and checking each myself first.  Of course I have been around computers sinces learning how to program in college in the 70's and have been building my own desktops for years.  I think when Vista came out I was running a AMD FX-60 (prior to Intel taking the led) or else I was running a core 2 duo X8000 with 8800gtx graphics.  I now am running a quad core extreme and crossfire 3870 x2 1gb each with refrigerated water cooling and I am about to move everything into an air conditioned tower case, as quad graphics cards are heating the case up a bit causinging the thermoelectrics to work overtime (there are at least there companies that selll reasonalble prices, low maintenace, and no evaporation issue refrigerated cases).

I only mention these builds as a reason why I love Vista.  My wife and kids also are happy with Vista using laotops with T7250 up to t7600 cpus with Class I graphics cards.  

However, as an attorney I get more angry daily at ads I receive from cetain online retailers, who will be the next parties named in the lawsuits and whose ads will be marked as Plaintiffs exhibits, becuase even though they are fully aware that a dual core laptop with a T1450 cpu, 1gb of ram and Class 5 integrated graphics with no discrete graphics memory, will boot Vista Home Premium but freeze if much else is done, although you would not know it by the glowing terms regarding speed and multitasking and power they are using in these ads, and then they have the gaul to price some these relics at $500 to $800, when you can get great deals on T7000 core 2 duo laptops since Intel for some reason released the T8000 and T9000 series and convinced a few big players to dump all previous series of laptop CPUs overnight, w/o having sales.

While I have always been one of a big supporter  of the comuter industry and one of those early adopters of new technolgy (I speak from expereince on this issue I had a T2330 based Sony which I was informed by Best Buy and stickers was Vista Capable and found out that it most surely was not as it could not run various aspects of Vista.  I ended up installing overclocked memory and  replacing the cpu woth a T2600 which helped at least but there were still unexpeceted restrictions.  

Now Asus is selling the EEE 4g 7" miny notebook for a few hundred and it is faster then what these guys are knowingly pushing onto the public.  I would have more compassion for them it this was happening when Vista just came out but I have none whatsoever now when Gates is under attack and yet is still trying to protect the role these guys played in the process.  Frankly, I while I have been to court it has always been as a defense attorney and my specialty is actually real estate and environnmental law.  However, if one of the purchasers of the computer in the ad I saw today came to see me I would take up practicing class action law very quickly and name at least thtee on-line retailers wihth big revenues who seem more culpable at present then Microsoft.

you know by the way you are acting you all act as if some one said something about you wifes or mothers, if you act this way about an Inanimate object I wonder how you feel about the economy or world affairs I think I would rather hear an atheist complain about christians. I mean it sounds like when in school you would hear well my dad can beat up your dad, how childish  when I started working on computers there was a similar argument, which was better t