Posts by Pete 39 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2007
Its right there in Add/Remove Programs.
Of course, you've still got to go picking through your hard drive and startup to delete the files that are left behind to stop them running, but its by no means an essential program to have running. None of the Google apps (Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome (last time I tried it anyway)) complain about its absence or lack functionality.
Steam works fine, theres nothing wrong with it. If you'd bothered to read the instructions you might've discovered that you don't need an internet connection to play any of the games and they can be played offline just fine.
So before you bash a platform, get your facts right.
People are pirating XP and not using Linux because well, Linux is rubbish.
Awful software, awful hardware compatability, awful usability.... just awful.
Most people, me included, just want an OS that works and offers decent software to use. Linux offers neither of these. Last time I tried to install Ubuntu my network card didnt work, I had no acceleration on my video card and playing video was an utter nightmare.
I fixed the network card issues (two lines were the wrong way around in some conf file) after a couple of hours of googling, I still can't get the video card drivers to play happy and the shitty software situation will never improve.
I went back to Windows and got some work done.
Downgraded my sister's laptop to XP from Vista recently, everyone who uses it is much happier now it runs at a reasonable pace.
As for the number of people who downgraded to a flavour of Linux from Vista, i'll put money on it being less than 1%.
I'm hearing the Windows Server 2K8 argument touted a lot, but it seems that by the time you've made the 'tweaks' to make it a usable desktop OS you've basically converted it into Vista. Why bother?
... Off peak anyway. And I don't believe for one second that it only applies to the top 5% of people, I download bugger all compared to some people (i've seen figures of 1TB+ a month from some, I don't manage that in a whole year) but I still get capped come 3GB and 4PM when I do feel the need to stretch my downloading legs.
The new caps don't sound like easing off at all, I don't think anyone will be fooled by this announcement.
... If you wanted to watch TV on your mobile, chipsets for receiving normal freeview will be small and efficient enough to integrate into a phone.
Of course, this will probably never happen, because why then would we pay the networks for the privilege of receiving DVB-H broadcasts?
And I would use 3G if the price for data wasn't the obscene price it is, £2/MB on O2.
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