How can an IP stack be rewritten? Those algorithms have been around for at least 15 years and surely have been chewed to bits for optimization by now. To me it seems improbable that there is anything to add to what's already known. Even so, if the IP code still can be optimized, would M$ not be obliged to do updates to current XP's as well. It can't be that they knowingly allow sub-optimal code to stay alive just to give them a selling point for Vista. Also, Vista will be very DRM/media oriented. In the future every driver, every piece of hardware and every upgrade has to be signed by M$ or it won't work. This all to let a few other dinosaurs from the media industry live a few years longer before extinction. This will have far-reaching implications, to the extent that Open Source solutions will become even more interesting for corporate use. Visa is turning your 'serious business' platform into something targeted towards games and music. Because that is where the competition is making money, and we can't allow that, can we. To approach that goal all kinds of obstacles will be appearing for business users as well. To me it is a last miserable attempt to finally control everything. Let's put them out of their misery soon. Ursa..
they have now activated the TCP window scaling feature by default. in XP you had to change a registry key to activate it. btw, if we're talking about real time quotes, every time i optimized my connection by tweaking the parameters (RWIN etc.), i did get faster web pages, however i got limping quotes. obviously since quotes are more important to me, i don't touch this thing anymore. i just use Windows' default values. i guess IB and eSignal had these values in mind when they programed their streaming quotes. then again, i could be wrong about every single thing i wrote here now.
Upgrading to Vista will make sense if: 1. It can flawlessly run all the programs needed to trade. I underline the word flawlessly. 2. Will not cost me a dime, that is come with my new system. 3. XP will no longer allow to run the programs needed to trade, that is the new version of let say E-signal would no longer support XP but only Vista. Other than that MS can keep it.
If you do upgrade (and there are enough 'early adopters' out there) whatever you do DON'T buy the 'Home Basic' version which doesn't come with the sexy Aero interface. Instead shell out more $ for the 'Home Premum' version. Also, apart from the SP2 argument it's most probably best to wait a year and upgrade via buying a new PC. Then most of the new machines sold (even the $600 Dell type) will have enough power as standard. And if you want to run to run Vista on less than 1Gb of RAM good luck, 2GB is really going to be the minimum. PS. I want to buy a cheap new PC pre Vista and have been keeping an eye on Dell's special offers (in the UK). It's clear to me that they're really trying to shift some old stock, a lot of Sempron machines being offered with a scandoulsy low 256MB RAM - poor consumers who don't know what they're buying........
"It can't be that they knowingly allow sub-optimal code to stay alive just to give them a selling point for Vista." microsofts business model is dependent on selling new OEM versions of their operating system. To do this they have to make you unhappy with your current machine. In the past, they wrote horribly inefficient software and allowed the number of programs running in the background to grow without the users permission. And, of course, there is the endless list of anti-competitive practices they engage in and have been sued over. They were forced to clean up their act somewhat in Europe because of Linux and the European courts. And it is because of Linux that we have XP, the first operating system microsoft had to produce in a somewhat competitive environment. But don't expect the leopard to change its spots.
I am already running it. The most important traders tool (EliteTrader) works fine on it It has some problems in multimon configuration. I have to turn on/off monitors to make it see them. Plus some other minor glitches. It is more buggy than XP SP2 but I assume they will fix these bugs in Vista SP1.
"Ironically, playing around with Vista for more than a month has done what years of experience and exhortations from Mac-loving friends could not: it has converted me into a Mac fan. " http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/17992/page1/ Woah.. new ET icon interface...
1. wait 1 year (as usual with 'closed' software it is hit&miss for 3rd party software developers to find why something isn't working) 2. wait 2 years (many suppliers will still allow the choice for XP, and this will make some diff in the end-price) 3. wait 5 years (XP is so well established by now, no supplier will be in haste to pull the plug) Ursa..