Microsoft touts Windows vista restart manager
Okay – here we go…. Microsoft is talking about a new feature of Vista that allows you to …
update parts of the operating system or applications without having to reboot the entire machine.
If that works as advertised that’s great. Update something related to networking, just restart networking *(kind of like what unix based systems do “service network stop/start/restart…)
I don’t know it could be “more technically complicated than just restarting services.” What’s really funny to me is that I have no positive reaction to this announcement. I recall very well the pre-release buzz for Windows XP. “You can update the system without restarting, you see it’s so GOOD it can just restart the service affected by the update.” Now, how many times have you seen updates to a Windows XP system that required a reboot? I’ve lost count. In fact it doesn’t seem that much less frequent than previous Win9x releases. (Maybe a bit, but not a lot.) Admittedly I’ve seen things that work when changed in spite of not rebooting (as you’re advised to do.) Some network specific functions I’ve noticed will start to work even if the reboot is refused/postponed. But again, like I say, this announcement doesn’t get much of any positive reaction from me.
I’m sure we’ll also see articles claiming that “vista will be the most secure windows operating system ever”, “vista to be the easiest to use windows ever”, “vista will do a better job at organizing your files than any other windows os”, “vista will repair itself better than any windows os ever, preventing os problems, blue screens an…..” on and on. It’s the hype cycle and I’ve seen similar stuff from EACH and EVERY release.
I remember hearing – OH it doesn’t crash – I’ve had it running for 7-10 days straight and it NEVER blue screens (about the release of Windows 98.) XP was going to be the most secure Windows ever on first release. I seem to recall the UPNP vulnerability was announced before the release. Over the course of those releases and the daily living with them I’ve got to the point where such hype has utterly lost it’s credibility. Excitement over a feature like that, at this point, has to be earned. Show me how well it works.