Windows Vista

Maybe it is just how poorly my XP based system was performing the last several months, but I have encountered no major issues with Vista at this point (24 hours of experience with it)

The “fade” thing with opening and closing windows takes some getting used to though…

Just gaming and porn here… so no major issues  :evil:

I really don’t think Vista itself is as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Much of the problem with Vista comes down to hardware compatibility (or lack thereof). The steep hardware requirements for Vista to run decently (and not just the aero eye candy part) no doubt alienated probably 90% of the existing XP user base. Not good. So by bringing out a new OS upgrade that won’t run acceptably on most existing hardware… 9 out of 10 people are going to complain (and rightfully so) that Vista is nothing short of horrible. And I don’t blame them one bit because for 9 out of 10 people… Vista IS horrible.

To compound that, I think that some of the new(er) machines that came bundled with Vista still weren’t quite up to the task. The 1GB of ram which seemed like ridiculous overkill last year isn’t even close. Anyone working with onboard video ram (or worse, sharing system ram for video) is likely in for a severe case of “click and wait”. And nothing will infuriate a user more than to buy a newer system supposedly “Vista ready” only to find out that while their system will physically run Vista… the user experience is absolutely terrible. This is why MS quickly ushered in XP “downgrades” for many “Vista ready” machines.

In that respect, MS really did drop the ball with Vista. No one who bought a supposedly Vista ready machine really cares if their problems are hardware, or software related. They just know that it sucked! Had MS stretched the truth a bit with their claims “Vista ready”? Apparently. But again, it really doesn’t matter why to the end user. They only know that if they go back to XP they will certainly return to an enjoyable user experience. And too, that their Vista experience “sucked”.

I’m primarily a Mac user so believe you me I’m NOT sticking up for or defending MS or Vista in any way, shape or form. I’m just trying to put things into perspective. In the past year or so I’ve run “the big 3” (Mac, MS and Linux) so as time goes on I really become less of a Mac user and more of just a “system” user, using whatever tools best suit the task at hand. There’s lots and lots of PC and Linux software out there too so I really like having those options. And virtulization really is the way of the future.

On a brand new Q6600 quad core machine with 4GB ram and 256MB Nvidea card Vista runs just fine. Oh sure, it still has it’s share of MS “quirks” (I can’t create a useable Photoshop droplet on Vista for some reason, stuff like that.) And yes those dumb security nags ARE pointless and silly but still not as bad as everyone makes them out to be. On that same machine my experience with Fedora 8 really was dismal. I could not get Flash or Java to work and after literally weeks worth of reading and trying this, that and the other thing still could not solve the problem.

Anyway, I think the majority of people bashing Vista these days are simply parroting what they’ve heard/read without any firsthand experience whatsoever (or perhaps installed Longhorn beta on a P4 with predictably dismal results). I would invite anyone to sit down at a truly capable machine and put Vista though it’s paces. Then you would be evaluating the software itself for it’s merits/detriments without the bias of unsuitable hardware. Now what constitutes a truly Vista capable machine IS a very major problem and that’s really the only point I’m trying to make here. So yes I think MS absolutely dropped the ball on Vista to be sure, but not for the reasons that most people think. ~ZP

I picked up a lap top in august and, to show how up on tech I am, I had no idea what vista was, I knoticed the os seemed different, but I only use that machine for internet at home, so other than functions being different I haven’t had any problems.

But… now that I know, change is bad, kill the Vista!

@Zero:

To compound that, I think that some of the new(er) machines that came bundled with Vista still weren’t quite up to the task. The 1GB of ram which seemed like ridiculous overkill last year isn’t even close. Anyone working with onboard video ram (or worse, sharing system ram for video) is likely in for a severe case of “click and wait”. And nothing will infuriate a user more than to buy a newer system supposedly “Vista ready” only to find out that while their system will physically run Vista… the user experience is absolutely terrible. This is why MS quickly ushered in XP “downgrades” for many “Vista ready” machines.

This is the main problem.  They pushed it way too hard, way too early.  XP will suit most people fine.

I’ve played with Vista a bit, but the truth is, Microsoft does really stupid things like break things that work or turn out an incomplete product.  It’s more a factor of the computer race than actually trying to sell something good.

vista sucks…. it controls too much and has too many things that run in the background.

@Imperious:

vista government sucks…. it controls too much and has too many things that run in the background.

Fixed that for you, tee hee.

Ain’t that the truth…

Get a Mac and you’ll be happy.

I’m a Network Administrator, and I recently evaluated Vista for deployment on our networks.  I can unequivocally state that Vista sucks, especially if you plan on upgrading XP to Vista on an existing machine.  First of all they say you can run Vista with a minimum of 1GB of RAM, that’s just an outright lie.  2GB minimum, but you better have more.  Then there’s the compatibility issue…not only is it almost impossible to find drivers for anything but brand new hardware, many 3rd party software (at least the ones we use) won’t run on a Vista machine.  The real killer for me was Vista’s insane attempts to second guess me when configuring the machine…“you are about to load “X”…click ok to continue.”…“are you sure you want to do that?”  Yes damn it, I’m root…do as your told! :x  :x  When you’ve got 15 software programs to load it becomes really annoying.  After a week of playing around with Vista, I filed the disk in the round file.  I haven’t seen anything this bad since Windows ME.

It’s not a coincidence that Dell reversed their policy and went back to offering XP on all their new systems.  More proof that Vista sucks…MS has just released the beta for XP Service Pack 3.

My hubby is on Vista now.  But it came preinstalled and he isn’t having any problems with it in the past 36 hours he’s owned his new laptop.  Does have 2GB memory though.