After Beta, Messages Will Be Exclusive to OS X Mountain Lion

[Rodimus Prime]

Must be my school. They're running Windows 7 Pro, and every time you move a file from a network drive to C, you get a message saying that the file might harm your computer. If you download anything from the internet, "it might harm your computer". If you paste something into a text field on a site, it asks if you want to allow the site to have your clipboard.

My cousin has Ultimate in a VM, and I've seen him using it. He didn't try opening things from the internet, but he did have a lot issues with drivers (particularly video drivers).

I've used XP a lot of course, and THAT is enraging.

well you are complaining about poor IT practices and going way beyond the default settings in the notifications center. Default is it will only notify you if something is trying to install and make changes to system level stuff.

An install file will almost always request it but after that it is fine. If the thing stays rather sand box nothing is going to trip it.

As for driver issues not really MS fault. That would be poor drivers he is trying to run it on.

 

[faroZ06]

well you are complaining about poor IT practices and going way beyond the default settings in the notifications center. Default is it will only notify you if something is trying to install and make changes to system level stuff.

An install file will almost always request it but after that it is fine. If the thing stays rather sand box nothing is going to trip it.

As for driver issues not really MS fault. That would be poor drivers he is trying to run it on.

The drivers are completely MS's fault. They're supposed to come with Windows.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

The drivers are completely MS's fault. They're supposed to come with Windows.

no they are not. MS provide default drivers. Default drivers are there to get things off the ground and it is generally recommended and a good idea to get manufacture drivers afterwards. For graphic card that is going to break down to Nvidia, AMD ATI, or intel and of those the ones they tell you to get.

Default OS drivers are exactly that. They are ok at best but they are not the good ones as they are just defaults.

Do people not understand installing drivers?

 

[AidenShaw]

Must be my school. They're running Windows 7 Pro, and every time you move a file from a network drive to C, you get a message saying that the file might harm your computer. If you download anything from the internet, "it might harm your computer". If you paste something into a text field on a site, it asks if you want to allow the site to have your clipboard.

Expected behaviour if you are running in an account with administrator rights enabled. Admin accounts with rights disabled (the default) won't see this unless the app requests elevation.

The flag that "this file was downloaded from an untrusted source" is maintained in a "resource fork". If you wrong-click on the file in File Explorer, go to "Properties" and clear the check mark to mark it as local.

My cousin has Ultimate in a VM, and I've seen him using it. He didn't try opening things from the internet, but he did have a lot issues with drivers (particularly video drivers).

Which virtual machine software - the big name VM vendors provide the video drivers for their systems.

As someone who uses virtual machines *a lot*, I think that your cousin probably has other issues.

If you've ever glanced at the system folders in Windows 7, they are not orderly at all. It's more like a random mess of stuff strewn about.

Just because you don't understand the pattern, doesn't mean it's not there.

It's quite simple:

• 64-bit system executables live in \Windows\System32\
• 32-bit system executables live in \Windows\SysWOW64\
• 64-bit applications default to \Program Files\
• 32-bit applications default to \Program Files (x86)\
• mixed applications choose their own (e.g. VMware Workstation is installed in \Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\ - the 32-bit GUI and the tools run from there, but VMs (even x86 VMs) run from files in \Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64\)

Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater every 2 years, so there are some links and choices made so that the huge majority of the software that you bought 5, 10 or even 15 or 20 years ago for your 486 still installs and runs on your Core i7 Win7 x64 system.

The drivers are completely MS's fault. They're supposed to come with Windows.

no they are not. MS provide default drivers.

In particular, the para-virtualized drivers for virtual machines do not and have never come from MS - they come from the virtual machine vendor (with the obvious ambiguity that drivers for "Virtual PC" and "Hyper-V" are not on the Windows kit, they come from the VM vendor who happens to be MS).

 

[faroZ06]

no they are not. MS provide default drivers. Default drivers are there to get things off the ground and it is generally recommended and a good idea to get manufacture drivers afterwards. For graphic card that is going to break down to Nvidia, AMD ATI, or intel and of those the ones they tell you to get.

Default OS drivers are exactly that. They are ok at best but they are not the good ones as they are just defaults.

Do people not understand installing drivers?

So why is it that the Macs never need to have other drivers installed?

 

[AidenShaw]

You are simply wrong here

So why is it that the Macs never need to have other drivers installed?

Obvious - it's a walled garden.

The Mac Pro is the only truly expandable Apple - and there you need to download drivers for many options (if one is available, of course).

Even the ExpressCard slot on the MBP 17" may need drivers - here's the download page for one of them - http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=410&expand=&action=a3#a3

Why is T-Bolt virtually still-born after more than a year? In large part because it's a PCIe expansion bus and *every* non-DisplayPort T-Bolt device needs a native driver to work. (And did I read that 10.8 will copy Windows and require 64-bit drivers for 64-bit operating systems? Even Apple learns from its mistakes.)

The use of "never" is simply wrong -- just because most Apples have no expansion and therefore don't need third-party drivers doesn't mean *never*.

Gee, I have this great price for a GeForce 5xx series 1.5 GiB Fermi/CUDA card - let's download the Apple OSX driver for it...

searching...
searching...
searching...

No drivers available.​

 

[faroZ06]

Obvious - it's a walled garden.

The Mac Pro is the only truly expandable Apple - and there you need to download drivers for many options (if one is available, of course).

Even the ExpressCard slot on the MBP 17" may need drivers - here's the download page for one of them - http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=410&expand=&action=a3#a3

Why is T-Bolt virtually still-born after more than a year? In large part because it's a PCIe expansion bus and *every* non-DisplayPort T-Bolt device needs a native driver to work. (And did I read that 10.8 will copy Windows and require 64-bit drivers for 64-bit operating systems? Even Apple learns from its mistakes.)

The use of "never" is simply wrong -- just because most Apples have no expansion and therefore don't need third-party drivers doesn't mean *never*.

Gee, I have this great price for a GeForce 5xx series 1.5 GiB Fermi/CUDA card - let's download the Apple OSX driver for it...

searching...
searching...
searching...

No drivers available.​

But when you get a new, unmodified Dell or something, it sometimes requires drivers for stuff that it doesn't come with. They must have left a lot out. I never have the right OpenGL or DirectX for whatever game I want to play. My friend, an avid PC gamer, said that he got a message telling him his hard drive driver (is there such a thing?) is corrupted on his new machine.

And is there some kind of generic USB driver? On my Mac, I've never needed any drivers for USB stuff. On modern (XP and later) Windows machines, this is also mostly been the case, but in Windows 98, half of the stuff I connected with USB didn't work. Sadly, the USB floppy drive that was supposed to only be for the VAIO worked on my iMac and not the VAIO.

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Obvious - it's a walled garden.

The Mac Pro is the only truly expandable Apple - and there you need to download drivers for many options (if one is available, of course).

Even the ExpressCard slot on the MBP 17" may need drivers - here's the download page for one of them - http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=410&expand=&action=a3#a3

Why is T-Bolt virtually still-born after more than a year? In large part because it's a PCIe expansion bus and *every* non-DisplayPort T-Bolt device needs a native driver to work. (And did I read that 10.8 will copy Windows and require 64-bit drivers for 64-bit operating systems? Even Apple learns from its mistakes.)

The use of "never" is simply wrong -- just because most Apples have no expansion and therefore don't need third-party drivers doesn't mean *never*.

Gee, I have this great price for a GeForce 5xx series 1.5 GiB Fermi/CUDA card - let's download the Apple OSX driver for it...

searching...
searching...
searching...

No drivers available.​

But when you get a new, unmodified Dell or something, it sometimes requires drivers for stuff that it doesn't come with. They must have left a lot out. I never have the right OpenGL or DirectX for whatever game I want to play. My friend, an avid PC gamer, said that he got a message telling him his hard drive driver (yes, they exist) is corrupted on his new machine.

And is there some kind of generic USB driver? On my Mac, I've never needed any drivers for USB stuff. On modern (XP and later) Windows machines, this is also mostly been the case, but in Windows 98, half of the stuff I connected with USB didn't work. Sadly, the USB floppy drive that was supposed to only be for the VAIO worked on my iMac and not the VAIO.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

But when you get a new, unmodified Dell or something, it sometimes requires drivers for stuff that it doesn't come with. They must have left a lot out. I never have the right OpenGL or DirectX for whatever game I want to play. My friend, an avid PC gamer, said that he got a message telling him his hard drive driver (is there such a thing?) is corrupted on his new machine.

And is there some kind of generic USB driver? On my Mac, I've never needed any drivers for USB stuff. On modern (XP and later) Windows machines, this is also mostly been the case, but in Windows 98, half of the stuff I connected with USB didn't work. Sadly, the USB floppy drive that was supposed to only be for the VAIO worked on my iMac and not the VAIO.

Are you really comparing windows 98 to a modern OSX? Come on 98 was around the time USB start kicking off. Their were a lot of growing problems and driver issues then.

As you pointed out XP and newer it was a non issue.


And that is MS fault. Sorry the blame sits on the OEM failing to update their image files to keep up to date. Generic drivers for a lot of stuff yeah MS has it but it is still generic drivers.
An example of where Generic drivers work but no where close to as well as the Manfacture drivers is lets look at logic wave keyboard. On generic drivers yeah the keyboard works but all the special function keys (volume up, media controls and some other short cuts) are a no go. F-lock also does not work until the drivers are installed.

----------

Why is T-Bolt virtually still-born after more than a year? In large part because it's a PCIe expansion bus and *every* non-DisplayPort T-Bolt device needs a native driver to work. (And did I read that 10.8 will copy Windows and require 64-bit drivers for 64-bit operating systems? Even Apple learns from its mistakes.)

If apple is not careful that can really blow up in their face have many of the same driver issues windows had in the early days of 64 bit while everyone else catches up.

 

[AidenShaw]

But when you get a new, unmodified Dell or something, it sometimes requires drivers for stuff that it doesn't come with.

Is this what you meant to say? Of course, if you add additional devices to the computer you may need to install drivers - but that's common sense.

Even so, the full set of drivers from the Windows installation are saved in %SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore. If you add a device later that's in that supported set, you'll see a little popup that says "Installing driver", then either "Your device is ready to use" or "Please restart to use the device". The newly installed driver came from the DriverStore. (Depending on settings, it may also check with the online DriverStore at Microsoft if the driver is not in the local DriverStore.)

They must have left a lot out.

Actually, it's impressive how many they put in, considering the range of hardware available for Windows systems.

I never have the right OpenGL or DirectX for whatever game I want to play.

This is by design - Microsoft does not provide accelerated 3D video drivers on the Windows kit. Only generic 2D drivers for the supported cards.

For pre-built OEM systems (Asus/HP/Dell/...), the OEM vendor will install the 3D driver in the factory image (and include it in the restore image).

If you upgrade to Windows 7, do a clean installation from the Microsoft disc, or upgrade your graphics card, you'll need to visit the graphics card/chip vendor site and dowload the 3D driver.

My friend, an avid PC gamer, said that he got a message telling him his hard drive driver (is there such a thing?) is corrupted on his new machine.

Windows has lots of hard drive drivers running on every system (the IO system is layered into logical abstractions - each provided by different drivers).

Your anecdote doesn't ring true, however, for two reasons:

• if one of these drivers is corrupted by a disk error, the system probably would not be able to boot to show you the message
• if corrupted or modified by software, Windows has a hidden backup cache of critical system files, and will immediately restore the correct file

Your "friend" should be warned never to download porn that comes in a .EXE file, and never to install an app or codec from a porn site. His computer could get a sexually transmitted disease.

 

[krzyglue]

Last I checked Windows Live Messenger was a stand-alone product and a free one at that. Messages is a feature of OS X 10.8, not a stand-alone app, and 10.8 will not be free. So I think you best look in the mirror before accusing people of constructing poor analogies. Glass houses, my friend. Glass houses.

I can't believe you are relying on this constructed distinction of "feature" versus stand-alone product. I would think that the beta of Messages running perfectly on my Lion install right now is more than enough proof of this fact.

Certainly colours your "glass house" comment with a hue of arrogance.

 

[Smoother]

This might be a good idea, to give people incentives to upgrade their OS to minimize the spread in what people use. To in future make it very normal for people to update like they do with their phones.

To compare with Windows XP was like the biggest OS until what? A few
Months ago? More than a decade after its release and 2 major OS releases.

It might cost 29 bucks but honestly if you can afford an Apple computer paying 29 bucks for your whole household or whatever it is shouldn't be a problem.

 

[sanford]

This might be a good idea, to give people incentives to upgrade their OS to minimize the spread in what people use. To in future make it very normal for people to update like they do with their phones.

To compare with Windows XP was like the biggest OS until what? A few
Months ago? More than a decade after its release and 2 major OS releases.

It might cost 29 bucks but honestly if you can afford an Apple computer paying 29 bucks for your whole household or whatever it is shouldn't be a problem.

I don't think many people are miffed about the (speculative) $29 upgrade fee for OS Mountain Lion. They're miffed that they have Macs, older but still fully sufficient for their needs, that aren't supported by OS X Mountain Lion and they (presumably) won't be able to buy iMessage for OS X Lion as a separate Mac app, when it, or some version of it, will obviously run just fine on their older Macs running OS X Lion.

This is all based on some expiration message text discovered poking around in a beta version of software not scheduled for final release for many months. I wouldn't be surprised if by then or shortly after you can get iMessage for Mac separately, perhaps even for free, and iMessage for Windows, likewise free or cheap. The great majority of iPhone owners use Windows computers. If Apple misses this opportunity to spread the iMessage standard, I'm afraid Steve Jobs is not only dead, but they've already misplaced his DNA.

 

[RedRaven571]

In that case, I'm just glad that Microsoft isn't the new Microsoft.

But, then who's the new Apple?