As someone who uses Windows Vista practically daily, I’ve always wondered where all the negativity in the media comes from. Sure, Vista isn’t perfect (as if any operating system is), but I just don’t see where all the complaints are coming from. It runs just fine on my old (6 years) machine, all my software and hardware is compatible, and it’s stable as a rock. Microsoft has been wondering the same thing, and after a little test, they may have found out why people seem to dislike Vista so much.
Microsoft went to San Fransisco, rounded up a few die-hard Windows XP fans, and asked them about their opinion on Windows Vista, all while videotaping them. They were then introduced to a secret project within Microsoft, code-named “Mojave”, a new operating system from Microsoft. Over 90 percent of the respondents gave positive feedback to Mojave. “Oh wow,” said one user.
And then they were told the truth. There is no Mojave. Mojave was ‘just’ Windows Vista.
While the test of course lacks vital elements of the whole Vista experience, such as installing, upgrading, hooking up hardware, connecting to the network, and so on, this little test does demonstrate an important aspect of the whole negativity surrounding Windows Vista: some of it is based on nothing but perception, instead of experience. To how much that “some” amounts remains to be seen, of course.
Still, I’d hazard a guess it amounts to quite a bit, and so does Microsoft. They’re starting a campaign to tell “the real Vista story”, and this Mojave test, including its footage, provides Microsoft with some decent ammo to combat the perception problems troubling its latest operating system.
My guess is that one of the reasons “Mojave” got positive feedback was that no one promised the users it would “revolutionize the way you work with computers”.
They probably also didn’t get to see this first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9ifQvQCO7Y to get their hopes up.
And finally, they probably didn’t have to wait for a few years before getting to try it out.
Vista isn’t bad, and in my opinion it’s probably the best from Microsoft so far, but you’re not going to make people happy with something good (a few years late) if you promised them something wonderful.
Microsoft’s biggest problem with Vista is their own marketing who managed to make people upset with something that actually isn’t bad.
Or it might be because Microsoft controlled the experiment. Users weren’t shown the daily complaints about Vista but instead were fast-tracked to the eye candy et al.
Like when I show Linux off to my mates – I don’t go “look at me load a Windows wifi driver through the command line” but instead i show them Compiz-Fusion with applications popping out of a rotating cube and windows wobbling as I drag them from one side of the screen to another.
IMHO Vista sucked but Vista SP1 is far better. It is not still as stable as XP SP2 but it is much better. I have only had explorer hang on me twice in 2-3 months and outlook hang once. On XP, they never hung in 2-3 years.
I was the one who was forced by my employer to upgrade and as a developer I was really skeptical. But now that I have used vista for few months, I don’t think I would go back. The whole experience of Vista is better and the code is much more readable on Vista due to better fonts + rendering.
Edit: Btw one tool without which I wouldn’t have liked vista is “vistaglazz”. This allowed me to keep transparency enabled when applications are maximized since I always keep my apps maximized and I hated the black border original vista does. Maximized apps are one reason I never liked OSX. Why force these choices on user, I never understand.
Edited 2008-07-24 23:52 UTC
You’re making compromises to use an OS that actually costs money to buy.
“It’s not so bad– For my $200 I only get two or three crashes a week. Compared to the OS I’d already paid for, it’s not terrible…”
Who doesn’t do that though? Apple’s ad campeigns are made to make you feel smarter and cooler then your neighbours, hell, firefox 3 claims to give you a whole new internet.
General rules of thumb:
The word “then” is always related to time.
“It happened then.”
“Back then, things were better quality.”
The word “than” is always related to comparisons.
“It was better than yesterday.”
“Back then, things were better quality than they are today.”
Edited 2008-07-25 08:27 UTC
OSAlert: The best source for the latest computer news and grammar lessons.
google_ninja said…
I was with you until you brought in Firefox….
Go ahead and download the latest Firefox. Install it and head over to addons.mozilla.org and install the following extensions:
Adblock Plus
Adblock Element Hider
No Squint
Stylish
OPTIONAL:
No Script
CustomizeGoogle
BugMeNot
After you get all that done, and selected a few basic lists for adblock Plus to use, hit up userstyles.org for some of your favorite sites to see how different they can be!
If that isn’t a whole new internet, I don’t know what is!
–bornagainpenguin
FF3 fixed some of the most glaring of bugs in the browser, but there is absolutely nothing the least bit revolutionary in it, which is how it was billed. Like it or not, IE has a more innovative interface then firefox, Opera has a huge laundry list of innovative features that firefox doesn’t have, and Safari has an incredibly clean code base and very fast rendering.
FF has above average javascript support and its plugins, but the plugins in general are very poorly written, which makes the already bloated and buggy app consume even more memory and become less stable. That leaves the javascript, which doesn’t even really matter unless you are using objective-j or sproutcore apps every day.
I agree with you.
I think Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot with Vista. Probably 20% of the things people hate about Vista are technological and 80% were caused by marketing. However, that 20% is stuff that stares you in the face on a daily basis.
I know this is a small thing, but the thing that pisses me off most about Vista whenever I have to use it is the sidebar disappears when you click the “Show Desktop” button in the Start bar. The Sidebar should be part of the desktop and be there when you show the desktop. The current functionality is just wrong. Maybe you can configure it somewhere, but this is the default behavior and I don’t use Windows enough to want to learn how to tweak it.
There are a lot of other things like that too. Vista is a decent OS, but there’s just a lot of stuff that was poorly thought out from a usability standpoint, I think.
And I’ll tell you why. I’ve been using Vista since November the very first reason I hate Vista is the double-prompting in UAC.
I download a FOSS utility and extract it to a folder under my temp directory. After determining that I like it I want to copy it to My \Program Files\Util directory. Now windows explorer prompts me with a “You need Admin privileges” to do this. I saw OK. Now UAC darkens my screen with the actual elevation prompt.
This is just one example but there are tons of scenarios that cause this crap. You have to elevate to do this, ok or cancel? UAC here, do you want to elevate, ok or cancel? Don’t harass me twice! Just skip to the UAC prompt.
Second royal PITA is there is no way to trust an unsigned utility. I’ve got tons of these handy FOSS utilities and every single damned time I run one Vista UAC has to darken my screen and ask me if I’m sure. Yes, for hells sake, I’ve used this utility 100 times now. There really needs to be a “Yes and don’t ask again for this executable” option.
I have more legitimate complaints, but these two are royal PITAs.
Let me see if I got this right. Your primary reason for hating Vista is UAC, which takes a grand total of about thirty seconds and a restart to disable? People seem to be trying very hard to find a good reason to hate Vista.
Let me see if I get this right, you want me to like Vista by disabling it’s main security feature? I don’t want a totally unsecured OS, I just don’t want to be repeatedly harassed for the same thing over and over again. I want to the option to say “yes and don’t ask for this one program again”. And that’s not even mentioning things like file copies where it prompts me twice every action. First explorer and then UAC.
I bet the Mojave participants weren’t shown repeated authorization pop-ups for the same blessed task over and over.
Right click the folder, choose properties. Choose the security tab, and click “Edit”. If your user is in the list, give him/her full control. If not, click “Add”. Enter your user name and click “Check” to make sure it can figure it out, and it isn’t ambiguous. Click OK on everything to close it.
Alternately, you can open a command prompt as admin, and type “icacls <path to folder you want access to> /grant username:F /T”. If you want to run the command in a non-elevated prompt, be sure to wrap it in double quotes, and stick a “runas /user:username” in the front.
The windows security model is very powerful, but it is also incredibly complected (imo too complecated for home users). IMO it is pretty much required knowledge though for anyone who wants an even marginally secure machine.
Thank you for the tip. I’ll do that. It’s a shame though that I have to lose the extra protection instead of being able to configure it to UAC prompt me once (as opposed to the explorer then uac double whammy prompt).
But thanks, I will use this.
Yes, but I would NOT recommend doing that – the whole point of UAC is increasing the security of the system. We shouldn’t be encouraging people to turn UAC off, but rather educate them on why it’s there, why it’s needed, and what it does. UAC is not that bad, I get the odd prompt here and there (which mirrors everyone else that I’ve spoken to about Vista in my circle of friends), but it’s quick, easy to approve and voila.
The *real* problem is that there are simply far too many people using computers who simply are idiots and shouldn’t be allowed within cooee of one. I mean, do you let any old idiot drive a car without first getting a licence? Nope.
Dave
Let me see if I got this right. Your primary reason for hating Vista is UAC, which takes a grand total of about thirty seconds and a restart to disable? People seem to be trying very hard to find a good reason to hate Vista.
What good is UAC if it’s disabled? That’s one of the primary selling points of Vista, if you disable it you’re no better in that regards than using XP.
It would have taken you less time to disable UAC than writing this post.
Microsoft reassures me (through their marketing and blog posts) that all my troubles with UAC are just misunderstood. Sure it pops up a lot in the beginning, they say, but just wait a week and it will subside.
Total BS. UAC continues to prompt (often repeatedly) for actions throughout the life of the OS unless you totally disable it. You want to know why people hate Vista, well this is one reason.
wrong!
You need to restart/logoff to get rid of it proper…so it does take time or is a hassle ‘cos then you have to close all your programs and do the whole windows business when you change system settings.
Not to mention one shouldn’t have to…
I have no beef with uac itself, just the way it presents itself:
-2 nags when 1 should do the trick
-screen frozen under the darkened tint (hello! compositing??)
-the tint is totally unecessary anyways (flickers when switching)
-no way to provide trusted programs
-no fine grained way to set uac privileges
Edited 2008-07-25 01:13 UTC
I haven’t even *tried* Vista. The main reason is I don’t want to spend $100 and also because I don’t have a DVD drive. The second reason is I’m perfectly happy with *nix. When I need to use Windows I use XP.
I’m loving OpenBSD right now…
But disabling UAC kind off defeats the purpose of requiring user interaction to write to system folders, doesn’t it?
is there not a microsoft statement saying that uac was designed to annoy third party devs into minimizing their use of admin access right when not needed?
I’ve seen that arrogant statement. But this has nothing to do with 3rd party devs requiring admin rights access. I get harassed any time I run any third-party app that hasn’t been digitally signed even if no admin rights at all are in play. And I can never tell vista that I trust that particular application and to stop asking.
I think MS was more interested in annoying users to get them to shift away from F/OSS programs that don’t have the infrastructure to digitally sign all their tools.
The reason why you can’t say “yes, and don’t ask me again” is because the next time it comes up, it might be caused by something malicious.
I’ve been using Vista for the past 5 weeks and I love it – looks brilliant, stable, fast (very fast actually), reliable – it *just* works. And I’m using the 64 bit version, which supposedly has more problems than you can poke a stick at.
UAC is not a major issue at all, certainly no worse than dropping to a terminal in Linux and having to su or sudo to gain root access.
If you’re going to whinge about something, then at least whinge about something that’s worth while.
Dave
Are you serious? I’m not saying it should never ask again about anything, but give me the option to say I trust this executable. It’s like saying “you’re trying to use an unsigned grep, do you trust it?” and then five minutes later “you’re trying to use an unsigned grep, do you trust it?”, and again, and again, and again, ad infinitum.
[q]The reason why you can’t say “yes, and don’t ask me again” is because the next time it comes up, it might be caused by something malicious.[/quote]
Did you read the whole request, he wants it on a per-application basis. What is so hard about UAC running an md5 against the exe file in question, store the result of that exe so that the next time it is loaded it is just a matter of a quick check against the stored md5 to see if it is the same exe – and allow the application to run?
Geeze, I thought of a solution just then that addresses the fundamental problem and the perceived security implications in under a minute. It isn’t rocket science – just good old fashioned commonsense.
IT’S NOT POSSIBLE!
First example:
1. user executes destroy.exe: UAC prompt, user clicks on “always consent”
2. malware executes destroy.exe, no prompt because the exe is the same.
-> you’re pwned!
Second example:
1. user changes a firewall rule: UAC prompt, user clicks on “always consent”
2. malware changes a firewall rule, no prompt because the firewall configurator executable is the same.
-> you’re pwned!
Third example:
1. user copies a file in c:\windows using windows explorer: UAC prompt, user clicks on “always consent”
2. malware copy a trojan in c:\windows, no prompt because the copy command executable or the explorer.exe is the same.
-> you’re pwned!
Edited 2008-07-25 08:31 UTC
Incorrect. End user loads it once, knows that it is an application he or she wants to use on a constant basis – heck, it could be their very own application they’ve written.
If you do an md5, compare the result of the stored one to the one done at the execution of the application – if malware has through some way replaced the legitimate file with something bad – the md5 comparison will fail and a warning along the lines of “exe has failed security check, file possibly compromised, excution haulted”.
If you are going to compare, don’t be dishonest and quote only the first half; the issue was addressing a specific question; the specific question was a specific executable file. It didnot involve file copying, it didn’t involve anything else. It involved running one piece of software and the contious asking whether its ok to run it because it isn’t signed.
The issue has NOTHING to do with UAC, because it isn’t UAC querying the end user. This security check exists on Windows XP to; if you choose to run something downloaded via the internet from the download window – when one clicks on ‘open’, one is faced with the same question.
Edited 2008-07-25 09:36 UTC
Thank you! You are exactly right on the money. MD5sums are no guarantees that the package is legit. There are a host of reasons why you should not have an option to always remember this application.
Dave
That’s why OpenSuSE and Fedora also use gpg to verify packages.
It’s pretty easy to “wow” your audience if you only show them the bits that work and have complete control over the hardware.
Even I initially went “wow” when I used Aero for the 1st time. However the novelty quickly wore off when when I came face-to-face with the UAC, the poor file transfer times and the completely rearraged control pannel with hyperlinks all over the place (to name but 3 of my Vista peeves).
XP and Linux both more than exceed my requirements (and do it quicker than Vista) so, thank you Microsoft, but I’ll pass off this “upgrade”.
Edited 2008-07-24 22:32 UTC
Here’s an EXCELLENT utility which allows you to interactively turn UAC on and off:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,67530-order,1-page,1/desc…
Poor file transfers were addressed in Vista SP1:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsvista/en/library/005f921e-f706…
Switch to “Classic” view. Bring up the control panel and look on the left-hand side of the Window to toggle between views.
now that sounds familiar. what other company do we know that loves that level of control over their product apperance?
You know. You just have to encourage people to try this new version that its SO much faster….and guess what? People will try it and say that its SO faster.
Even if theres NO change in the new version.
It’s called placebo effect. Make people think that they’re getting something better, and they’ll think it’s better. Apparently Microsoft want us to think that Vista is good trying with us the placebo effect. Except that in the real world, you can’t use the placebo, only vista is left.
The fact is that vista sucks. A friend of mine did buy a new notebook. 1GB of ram. Not only he can’t use Aero, the less power-hungry graphic system is also slow. Opening a explorer window can take seconds (with processor set to use the maximum performance). Many times things take ages and hit the disk like mad. And there’s no extra programs installed, there’s not even an antivirus installed (no, it doesn’t have virus). It takes ages to bootup. Programs like paint have almost not been updated since windows 3.x (seriously, who wants to pay a license to use the same program recompiled for the new system). The usability of everything related with the new “network center” is awful. There’re several dialogs with 9x usability still being used (see “Carpet Options”). The browser-paradigm (back/next arrows) of the control center and other places is ugly aswell IMO. The new features, like the integrated search, are not used in programs like notepad, which keeps the old search dialog from 9x days.
In general, you could say that they have a lot of problems related with “we-want-to-use-new-UI-conventions-but-we-won’t-update-most-of-the-O S-GUI-because-people-only-knows-the-conventions-of-w9x”
Seriously, I don’t see how people can like vista. I imagine that people that can handle big amounts of shit could get used to it, but I don’t think many of us are like that. Vista makes me want to use Ubuntu, and dude, that’s a huge problem considering how much the linux desktop still sucks.
Edited 2008-07-24 22:34 UTC
Which one? There are dozens of them.
Your friend got a new laptop, with only 1gb and that’s Microsoft’s fault how? Several things here – most onboard laptop video cards are weaker than wet cardboard. 1gb of RAM? XP struggled with that in all honesty, and you expect Vista to happily crawl along with that?
Let me spell-it-out-for-you – how about friggen blaming the damn well laptop manufacturer for being a tightass and ONLY giving 1gb of RAM?
Gees guys…are you that blindly idiotic that you blame the worlds woes for Microsoft, even when it clearly isn’t Microsoft’s fault?
If you love Linux or BSD great. That doesn’t give you a free licence to bash Windows just cos you can. Grow a damn well brain and use it ffs.
I’m really sick and tired of this Vista bashing, it’s a fine o/s that works great.
Dave
Righto, complaining 1gb of ram isnt enough is a very weak argument, I cant do much of anything in Linux or windows on a machine with that little of ram.
Its not 8 years ago people, wake up and buy some ram, its cheap! REAL cheap.
I’ll bite. Aside from media production and running high-end games, name one thing you can’t do.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of an operating system requiring 2 (or even 1) GB to work properly. What does it do that requires that amount of memory?
Not bashing vista here — never used it, no opinion, and yes, ram is cheap. I’m just… puzzled.
Edited 2008-07-25 04:50 UTC
Its the natural progression of things, like it or not, almost every operating system which still releases gains a larger memory footprint with every release. With very few “point updates” that slim it down a little. People couldent believe it when they needed more than 32mb of ram, and 64mb, 128, etc.. Its some sort of shell shock that users get whenever they upgrade. If you want more features, they inevitably use more resources, dont be surprised when you need more memory. If you dont need the features, dont upgrade!
Ps. Never said you couldent do anything with under 1gb of ram or even 1gb total, and there are many things that can chew on ram other than gaming and multimedia production. But you do hit a wall eventually, and while it may not prevent you from doing your work, it surely wont be the most seamless experience you have had.
Edited 2008-07-25 06:18 UTC
Ps. Never said you couldent do anything with under 1gb of ram or even 1gb total,
I’ve been chugging along just fine and happily with 768mb RAM for years now. Under Linux I get swapping _only_ if I am doing heavy browsing and compiling at the same time, otherwise it’s not swapping. XP for some reason does use swap somewhat more often but even then not noticeably unless I am gaming. When gaming I can understand it though, WoW does use insane amounts of memory.
Well… I cannot boot Vista anymore. An update from Microsoft broke something and when I try to boot Vista (which I did now and then to check out something in Corel Painter of Office 2007) it complains about a broken, missing or invalid winload.exe.
That’s absolute rubbish. XP runs just fine on 512MB RAM (I’ve even got audio sequencers and real time VJ packagers running on a 512MB XP machine).
My works XP machine runs even less RAM than that and I have a full array of Oracle database tools and MSOffice running on it.
As for Linux, that was designed to run on very little RAM. I have a file and web server running on 512MB RAM and never once needed to even consider upgrading it.
Granted you probably wouldn’t want to run Compiz on a machine that old, but then most of Compiz is just eye-candy rather than genuine interface improvments. Vista wouldn’t even load on 512MB RAM even with the eye-candy turned off.
So don’t tell me that 1GB isn’t enough for XP and Linux when both those OSs /HAD/ to survive on that little RAM not more than 4 years back.
In fact, the only part of your statement that was true was how cheap RAM is, but then I don’t see that as an excuse for forced into upgrading because Microsoft release an inefficient OS. It’s their cock up and you’re telling me I have to foot the bill (regardless of how cheap or expensive that might be).
I suppose you missed the part where I cant do much with windows or linux with less than 1gb of ram. And since the topic was about Vista, I assumed I didnt have to specify, but apparely people attack and insert thier own experience at will if you dont spell it out to them. And in linux, I compile everything, openoffice runs very healthy on system resources as it is, get java kicking with firefox, and your 512mb is looking bleak indeed. Again, I cant do much with less than 1gb, thats good for you if you can.
Edited 2008-07-25 08:43 UTC
They didn’t release an ineffecient operating system, they decided to include features which require more ram, since they made the call that people would probably have more ram these days..
You can’t surely believe that every operating system should have the same requirements as its previous version?
I actually want something to take advantage of the hardware I bought!
You think indexing, desktop effects and the sidebar explain an eightfold increase in memory requirements?
[q]Your friend got a new laptop, with only 1gb and that’s Microsoft’s fault how? Several things here – most onboard laptop video cards are weaker than wet cardboard. 1gb of RAM? XP struggled with that in all honesty, and you expect Vista to happily crawl along with that?
Let me spell-it-out-for-you – how about friggen blaming the damn well laptop manufacturer for being a tightass and ONLY giving 1gb of RAM? [/quote]
Microsoft gives out the ‘compatible with Windows Vista’ logo – it is based on what Microsoft demands the system to have before it can get the logo. There is nothing stopping Microsoft from upping the specifications and thus force the companies to increase the default amount of memory installed.
Microsoft could tomorrow, if they wanted, up the minimum specifications for Windows Vista compatible to 2GB if they wanted. The problem is that they’re sucking on the OEM tit rather than being honest with their customer base and saying, “Windows Vista has higher system requirements, and in fairness, anything less than 2GB, the system will run like crap”. The only people who would piss and moan would be the OEM’s.
True, but what is stopping the new potential owner from actually getting off their backsides and doing some research and getting a laptop that ships with 2gb? It’s not hard. It goes back to my earlier comments in many posts that far too many people are using computers who should simply not be allowed to do so. I hear horror tales every single day in my job, and nearly all of them caused by customer stupidity. They make life hard for themselves, and a lack of computer education (or, as in most cases, no interest in learning more about computers), means that this will remain so.
Sure, Microsoft does have the vista certified logo, and they have been naughty there, I agree.
Dave
Eh no use man, they will bash windows because they can. Most of em piping in even admitting to never “upgrading” to Vista, and relying on heresay. I think it bothers them so deeply that some people do like it so badly that they have to bury and hide comments to the contrary of they’re opinion.
I use linux, and vista, and love them both. They both do what I want them to do. I researched and purchased my hardware to coincide with my software use. Most people dont, and want to be angry when it blows up on them. Then others think your being unrealistic when you say that requirements are they way they are.
The world exists outside your computer people, there are many factors that add to memory usage.
Your base install may use 100MB of ram less than another users based on drivers alone. Just because you say “meh my computer has less than 1gb of ram and its fine” equals nothing in the Real world. Most general computer users will find a much higher usage than you and me just because they do not trim things down, and install dozens of programs they don’t use but wanted to “try” out.
Many of them have used it though – when you have a demonstration done by a person who knows the system inside and out – they’ll know how to make using it appear easy/effortless. How many people have gone to see a product being demonstrated, it appears to be easy, only to find that once you eventually get it home, its alot harder than it looks.
Apple is growing at record pace right now (43% unit growth) – if it were a fear of the unknown or the different interface then Apple wouldn’t be growing. If people are happy to leave Windows and learn a totally new system, you really have to ask yourself whether there is merit in the ‘loathing’ of Windows Vista.
True; most importantly, people who are here don’t represent mainstreet. People here maybe represent the top 5-10% of society in terms of computer knowledge and understanding. To claim that someone can do all the tweaking and get it working correctly ignores that the 90% of people out there don’t have a clue.
They use what is installed on their computer – that is why Symantec want their software to be loaded, it banks on the ignorance of the end user to get scared into purchasing by the tactics of Symantec’s warnings when one tries to avoid purchasing or choosing to uninstall it.
The major issue with Vista is several fold:
1. Some stability issues upon initial release
2. New UI (not all of the new UI is smartly done either I do admit)
3. Very bad press – and this is the big one. Nearly all of the computer press unreasonably bagged Vista, without adequate proof or reasoning. Sadly, most people are blind idiots, and they 100% believe what the press says instead of trying themselves.
4. Exceptionally bad efforts from 3rd party software vendors on updating their existing software to use the new Vista based security model. They wanted to save money, stick to existing insecure methods of coding their crappy software, rather than do the changes as was needed.
5. Same as point 4, but with driver vendors. Even worse, many driver vendors just simply said tough shit to its loyal users and refused to produce Vista drivers at all (Creative anyone?).
You simply cannot blame Microsoft for this. I mean, let’s look at it from a Linux angle. Driver vendors don’t provide drivers, it’s their fault. Substitute Linux with Microsoft, and suddenly it’s Microsoft’s fault. What idiotic lack of logical reasoning allows this type of thought process? Expecting hardware manufacturers to open up their code is absolutely unreasonable. It is THEIR product. Period.
As to the gentleman who advised me to give it up, yes, you’re right – most people here will just blindly mod you down, not because the post is inaccurate, but simply because they disagree with you, or are pro Linux and like to bash anyone who writes anything good about a Microsoft product. Hey guys, Server 2008 is looking REALLY good – I’m sure that’ll add to Linux’ falling server numbers (yes, Server 2003 did a lot of damage to the Linux numbers in the server field, and rightly so, it’s a good product). Microsoft isn’t perfect, but then neither is Linux. Both have their uses, and both are good operating systems. Both have weaknesses. Ignoring one operating systems weaknesses and bagging the other one is really not right. It’s not a balanced argument.
As an aside – Debian GNU/Linux install on my current PC – 10+ hours. Windows Vista? Done in under 2 hours, and that included 3rd party drivers, 3rd party software etc. Vista has so far proved to be far easier to maintain, and visually looks far nicer than Linux I might add (even with composite turned on etc).
Dave
0_o
Net install over 56K? Or make with the story telling!
Edited 2008-07-26 02:07 UTC
Just two points:
1. Bad press was coupled with extremely bad and unrealistic advertising. On one hand, some of the announced features didn’t make ’till the end. Some of them, like WinFS, were not really useful, but it doesn’t make for a good image. Second (and with this one, it certainly didn’t win back any users), it had a very idiotic way of presenting every new feature as something revolutionary, even though other operating system had had it for months or even years, or could easily be added to Windows XP through a couple of third party programs. Not moving from XP to Vista is not only due to bad image, deserved or not, it’s also due to Microsoft not giving absolutely any damn serious reason to move to Vista. Well, apart from the usual vendor lockdown issues which will appear shortly. Is there any groundbreaking feature that Vista has and you can’t get from XP? No? Then why spend the extra $$$, and quite possibly upgrade the computer?
2. I’m not sure what took you so long when installing Debian. It took me less than two hours to do it on my laptop, and that includes a shiFtload of packages.
Microsoft’s claimed “gains” in the server space are due only to Microsoft taking credit for hosting dead domains. It is purely a marketing sleight-of-hand, similar to counting downgrades to XP as Vista licenses.
10+ hours for a debian install? It takes two hours tops … 30 minutes if you use something like Siddux or Ubuntu.
Either your install is borked and it is not going to work anyway … or you are fibbing about it.
Now there is a jaw-dropping concept … “Lying for Microsoft”. What on earth next?
Hey – before you judge me, maybe you should actually find out why it took me so long?
Firstly – issues with the Marvell Yukon network card. I’m still not sure why I have networking in Debian, no idea why, since the Yukon is *not* working and it’s the only network card in the machine.
Try a Nvidia 8400GS with a Samsung 24″ widescreen LCD monitor. Not even Ubuntu did it right. And that took several hours of research on my part to try and figure out how to get it working, since the Linux kernel src was not installed, and I could not find a package amongst Debian’s myriad amounts of packages. The only reason why I ended up getting it working I suspect is because I installed some package that I’d never heard of before in all my years of using Linux, that supposedly auto installs (or helps to) driver packages (sorry, the name eludes me). I tried to install the nvidia drivers but they borked. For fun, I used this application to install ndiswrapper (even though I didn’t need it) and voila – I had a Linux kernel src tree. From there, the rest was dead easy, the proprietary Nvidia drivers installed in a jiffy. Oh, and even when trying to install X as a 800*600 256 colour setup on this system, it still would NOT f–king load. Dropped to a terminal every *single* goddamn time. Hell, even Windows 95 shits on Linux in this respect. Why does Linux have it so goddamn hard to do this? I can tell you now, your average user would say “screw this piece of shit, it’s back to Windows for me, Linux sucks”.
Oh, and then there’s the problem with KDE/XFCE (this happened on Ubuntu). I went to install the xfce4 package. No dependency issues mentioned by apt. What does it do, post install? f–king screws KDE royally, uninstall a shitload of packges. Now, no warning was made by apt about this. None. Nada. Niente. Niet. Keine. Get the drift? Well, that took a bit of time to sort out. I knew better to try that on Debian. All in all, probably 4-5 hours wasted on Ubuntu before I got it up and running, and probably closer to 10 hours on Debian of troubleshooting, installing packages, fiddling with things etc.
You can happily sit on your Linux tree (that’s a pun, given your user name
), and say it’s great, and if you like to fiddle, then it is. If you want a working system, quickly and easily, then for most people, Linux will NOT be your ticket to joy I’m afraid to say. True, not all of this is Linux’ fault, but a lot is.
Sure, I got Linux working eventially, the key word is eventually.
Don’t get me wrong, Vista is incurring my wrath (well, not Vista, but Canon actually) – my rather expensive Canon EOS1D Mark IIn is not detected by the system at all, and Canon’s technical help is about as much fun as having my balls pulled off square mm by square mm. Other than that though, My Vista system works with everything else, without *any* issue. I’ve had a few issues, but nothing major, nothing that didn’t happen under any other o/s:
1. Explorer crashing (once in 5 weeks of usage, not bad) – i’ve seen X crash more often than that!
2. A game I’ve started playing (Oblivion) has a weird issue when exiting the game, saying that it did not close properly, and the mouse is dead. A quick ^ meta del (sounds much cooller doesn’t it?) fixes that and regains mouse usage. I suspect that this is actually down to either the latest update for it, or the unofficial Oblivion patch (I installed both at the same time, so not sure which caused the issue to start happening).
3. I had the sidebar disappear on me once, but it came back by itself, not sure what happened there.
4. Winamp – even though I told Winamp to be associated with the right click drop down menu (i.e. play in Winamp), it didn’t work. A subsequent update 2 weeks later to a newer version seemed to fix the issue. Weird.
5. I can’t access the Vista partition from my XP partition – permission denied. I haven’t investigated the issue, but this is different to pre Vista systems, so maybe it’s some new security setup.
UAC has not been an issue – it does not come up frequently as some would argue, and it’s easy to read, and easy to use. Big deal.
Oh, and my Creative Xen M 60gb MP3 player works! I didn’t think it would, but Creative’s software installers are retarded. After re-reading the installers help me file, I found out what I’d done wrong (basically, plug in MP3 player first, let Windows Vista find it, then leave it plugged in and install the Creative software, weird!).
Dave
Hey, before you judge Linux, you might try it on a machine with hardware which supports it.
You wouldn’t try to install Vista on a PowerPC, would you? Nor on a 386 with 128MB RAM, either. No, you wou;d either buy it pre-installed, or you would look for a machine where someone had certified it for running Vista on.
Same with OSX … you would install that on a Mac.
Do the same courtesy with Linux … install it on a machine with hardware known to support Linux, and you will have no trouble whatsoever. It will be miles easier than OSX or Vista, or even XP for that matter.
If you want to experiment with Linux on escoteric hardware … that is your call. Go for it if you are game and want to spend the effort.
… but don’t bitch about it being difficult. Don’t whine that it took you hours … you should expect that if you go wandering off where no man has gone before. (Star Trek is after all a five-year mission!) The amazing thing is that it was even possible on random hardware. You can’t say the same for OSX or Vista … both of those require hardware certified for OSX or Vista respectively.
If you want an easy install (and not have to bitch) … you are going about it entirely the wrong way. Get a Dell with Linux pre-installed if lack of install hassles is what you really want. Or get something from system76 or ZaReason … or even Wallmart online if you prefer.
First off, you are using an outdated version of Ubuntu. The 8.04 is called, “HardyHeron” is the latest, and it has two helper for finding Nvidia drivers.
I suggest you install 8.04 and than go to System, Administration, Synaptic Package Manager and type Nvidia in the search box. This will allow you to install a program that installs the correct Nvidia driver. I can understand your confusion. You are not used to such an easy answer. After Vista, many are confused and bewildered!
Mark Heinemann
Okay, I’ll bite. I just had to do this a week ago, so it’s still very clear to me: I installed Debian in little from a recent netinst CD on a very recent AMD64 in hardly any time. Trying to install Windows I had to jump through hoops, scavenge drivers from backward places, find/extract/adjust .inf files for certain devices (like a bluetooth dongle f.e.), and keep on rebooting for updates, drivers, etc. The whole Windows installation experience seems like a collection of Voodoo rituals to me.
Maybe I just know my way around Debian better these days, but imo the Debian installation is way faster and smoother than the Windows one.
I just love reading you guys rants. It gets me going in the morning!
Regarding your friend and the laptop, I bought my son a 1GB laptop, with an underpowered processor, inbedded graphic card, (I only paid $380), and it runs Vista and Aero just fine. I have used Vista since Beta 2 and it has worked very well since then on old machines, old video cards and 1GB of memory.
So, you see, you are a liar or don’t really know what you are doing.
By the way, yesterday, I booted my version of Suse 11, and it had dozens of needed updates but guess what, the wireless would not work. There is always something wrong with whatever Linux version I use that keeps it on the toy section of my house.
If you want to learn a few things, read Ed Botts article about updates in Windows and Linux. You might be surprise, but maybe you won’t.
In the end, all OS’s have their own problems
If you buy hardware designed to have Linux pre-installed on it, you won’t have these problems. Everything will work. Manufacturers shouldn’t be selling you pre-installed Linux on machines with Broadcom wireless chips, for example, when an Intel wireless chip works perfectly.
Most people would only buy a machine with Vista pre-installed, they wouldn’t expect to be able to roll-their-own Vista machine. Do the same courtesy for Linux and you will get similar or better results than for Vista … every time. Guaranteed.
Unfortunately if you want an AMD based laptop, 9/10 you’re stuck with a Broadcom wireless chip. I do remember, however, seeing an Acer Aspire with an atheros chipset in it, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
I don’t want to go off on much of a tangent, but this the reason I would never purchase an AMD machine – the stupid management decision they made to team up with Broadcom instead of Atheros. If AMD really cared about opensource they wouldn’t be aligning themselves with such assholes who refuse to to work with opensource developers.
I found the same thing with a Vista laptop I bought (dual-core, 1 GB RAM). Ran like a turd, an all the other Vista frustrations and crashes made me phone up the mfr. (HP). They eventually told me (if you can believe this) to try installing Ubuntu (as they refused to give me XP). Installed (K)ubuntu, and no more problems.
I am sure that if Microsoft had instead told users to try the NEW IMPROVED WINDOWS MOJAVE (Ubuntu in disguise, running Compiz) they would have gotten much better testimonies from their participants.
Yeasterday I thought why not look for myself what Vista is made of. Well… It has nice face. But it is not a women I could accept all its shortages;)
It takes way too long to install and way too many reboots are needed to acomplish this task. It didn’t find internet line instantly, like ALL my tested LiveCDs did. Other problems, I guess, were connected with fact, it was on VirtualBox and not on real machine. But I guess with 2GB RAM and 128MB v. video card Solitaire should not become like Quake 4 on Pentium II…
There is nothing newsworthy here. What we’re seeing is a phenomenon that occurs will all manner of products every day! Why do you think so many products get new packaging every other year and the label “new and improved”? To bring back customers who might have switched due to some perceived flaw with the product. In most cases, nothing significant has changed and the product is basically the same. Furthermore, most people will believe what they’re told (especially if the media tells them) without question. This is the so called “sheeple” syndrome that’s rampant these days. Frankly, I’m surprised Microsoft hasn’t taken advantage of this already. They could have slapped a new theme on Vista and called it Vista Second Edition – New and improved and people would have eaten it right up.
There is a saying in my part of the world
“You can’t polish a turd”
“you can polish a turd but it will still be a turd”
i think the point of this experiment isn’t proving that vista is okay. it’s that everyone in test groups is an idiot.
i’d install vista over xp any day, people who hate vista without actually using it are going to do what they’re told in any experiment.
it’s like teaching a parrot how to talk. it mimics and doesn’t have an understanding of what it’s actually saying.
“you can polish a turd but it will still be a turd”
emmm, no, if you polish a turd, it turns into a smudge.
Right, the closed-minded, bigoted part of the world.
Nothing close-minded and certainly not bigoted about that statement. There are some things in this world that you can try over and over and over to like or at least get some use out of, but in the end you have no choice but to move on to something better. If a tool is inherently broken, duct tape will only go so far to fix it. There comes a time when you must either go back to the older, working tool, or get a completely different tool with a learning curve, but it works nonetheless.
There’s a saying from the aerospace engineering world that I think is a little more apropos:
“If you apply enough thrust, a pig can fly.”*
*See also: the Pentium 4.
That, even though the negative press would have lowered consumer’s expectations, Vista still hasn’t impressed.
At this point, it would be a success if people mostly had the opinion of “that’s not as bad as I’ve heard”.
From what I’ve seem and heard, (I haven’t tried it….although we did return one PC that came with it installed), vista isn’t even that good.
To quote a really good friend of mine (in real life) who is also in IT:
[quote]
21:53 <(name hidden)> ran intosomething interesting today….
21:53 <(name hidden)> an authentic vista license
21:54 <(name hidden)> pretty colorful little sticker with the key and all
21:54 <(name hidden)> that was INVALIUD!
21:54 <(name hidden)> tried to activate it and microsoft told me i was reading it wrong…
21:54 <(name hidden)> lol
21:55 <(name hidden)> then i read it back 4 times the same way and they said it had to be a misprint and they would not honor it
21:55 <(name hidden)> called the manufacture of the pc and they told me i had it correct and microsoft would activate it
21:55 <(name hidden)> even 3-way called the activation center with microsoft and proved to him that it was invalid…
21:56 <(name hidden)> neither microsoft or the tech would honor it…
21:56 <(name hidden)> how is that for f***** up??
21:57 <(name hidden)> i mean REALLY?
22:06 <(name hidden)> gonna have to take the laptop back… its that simple
22:06 <(name hidden)> never thought i would see a invalid valid vista license, but honestly.. i’m not suprised
[/quote]
Granted, I am sure that this is likely pretty rare, but he had quite the difficulty in returning that laptop (last he told me, he was still trying to return it or get a new license key issued).
Another issue I have is with their decision to severely throttle network file transfers if you are currently playing music in media player, with no option to change the behavior. This one might be fixed now, I haven’t been following.
The UAC going overboard on prompting as others have stated, one of the most annoying things on a modern day computer. How damned hard would it have been to provide a “do not warn me about this again” option for specific programs modifying specific things? The firewall gives me the option to allow after one prompt, make UAC do the same, be consistent.
Moving the font scaling option to a place that no one who was familiar with any previous version of windows would think to look for it. On XP it was in the advanced display setting because, well, it is an advanced setting dealing with the display. On Vista it is in the control panel in the list that displays on the left when you go into the display portion of the control panel. There is no way to get to it from any actual control panel icon.
One system tray icon for all of my network interfaces with no option to go back to one icon per network interface.
Lack of hardware acceleration for audio. I know that the core cpus of modern machines are more than capable of doing this all in software, but I want to actually exploit the hardware I bought like I could before. Also related to audio is the lack of being able to change what my preferred MIDI output device is (short of hacking away at the registry).
Cannot temporarily disable autorun by holding the shift key. I have used this feature a pretty fair amount on XP. My choices are now to disable autorun completely, or accept it completely.
Creating my own file type associations is now an exercise in registry hacking rather than a nice convenient interface through the folder options.
Now one thing they did do that I fully support was getting rid of the Desktop Cleanup Wizard, but I would gladly take it back if they also brought back the above and fixed UAC’s user functionality
Microsoft has been awarded the world record in bullocks user testing.
Ubuntu was shown with a deceptive Windows Vista theme and it turned out that Windows admins really dug the new command line, wobbly windows and the added security features.
It’s raining in Mojave.
Microsoft has started selling Mojave upgrades to all their Vista customers.
Edited 2008-07-24 23:41 UTC
I think this applies to just about anything new. People don’t like to change, and word of mouth carries a ton of weight — even if the word is bogus.
You know, I had almost started to believe that Vista was not that bad and that everybody saying anything different was just in denial.
Then, in two days, I met two guys with Vista on their laptops. Both times, I said “Hey, you’re running Vista.” and the answer was “Yeah, it sucks!”
Ordinary people, mind you, not Linux folks.
I do know that the plural of anecdote isn’t data but it’s definitely not as clear cut as some MS fanboys make it out to be…
I’m guessing that they bought computers that are underpowered. Vista really needs a minimum of 2GB to run efficiently but, since their margins are so thin and competition is so fierce, Dell and others try to cut corners by installing only 1GB. The result is fairly predictable: the machine spends an inordinate amount of time paging, and generally feels more sluggish. With 2GB going for about $40-50, you can’t tell me that it’s too expensive to properly equip a machine, either.
I have dual cores and 4GB of RAM though it’s only using 3.something since I’m running vista 32bit. And buddy, vista sucks.
It’s a 32 bit operating system. It’ll ONLY see around 3gb…32 XP or Linux are no better…
So, what was your whinge about?
Dave
I’m not whinging about its 32bit limitations, I’m saying the parents suggestion that people dislike vista because they are running low end hardware is off base. My system is well equipped to run vista and I think it sucks. It’s not about a hardware deficiency.
I’m currently running Kubuntu 64-bit with both KDE 3.5.9 and KDE 4.1 RC installed. No version of Windows has ever sullied my machine.
Why should I pay for a more expensive machine, pay for extra RAM, pay for a Vista license, go through all sorts of registration hassles, and use up a lot more disk space … all to get less functionality, make my machine susceptible to malware, make it run far slower, have it annoy me with UAC prompts, risk not being able to use some of my hardware, give up my privacy, allow a big US software vendor with monopoly interest a backdoor to my machine, risk that same vendor making an error and deciding to disable my machine, and give Big Brother US media content firms both a significant slice of my CPU time and rights over what I might want to do with my machine?
It simply makes no sense for me to do that, I would have to be insane. I would sacrifice many freedoms, rights, capabilities and capacity, and I would gain precisely nothing.
I can tell you for certain … it is indeed way too expensive to set up a machine with Vista.
It isn’t less functionality. You’re running less software (eg. no desktop search, etc), and you’re declaring victory over resource usage. Try comparing apples and apples.
I think one of the major issues that Vista has is that too many OEMs are shipping it out on computers loaded with a lot of crapware and outdated drivers. If you fix that, you have a much more usable system:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=429
Seriously, OEMs might make a little on the crapware, but they’re seriously shooting themselves in the foot and steering customers to Macs.
The second problem is the reviews. I’ve read several reviews where they would install Vista over a copy of XP that had a 3yo version of Norton-something on it. Forget it, you just killed the machine. Upgrading Windows=ALWAYS clean install. I don’t fault the reviewers for doing it this way… I mean, that’s probably how most end users would do it. But still, I’ve never known any version of Windows to do particularly well when upgraded over an older copy.
If you start out with fairly modern hardware with compatable Vista drivers and a clean install, things won’t be perfect, but they’ll be much improved.
Well, in my case… After having paid for this software, I was getting blue screens under heavy network activity. Probably some kind of driver incompatibility problem, because Windows XP and Linux did (and still do) work perfectly on this (new) hardware. I spent 3 months and 150 Euros on new hardware trying to solve this problem.
Suggested solution: use XP or Linux instead.
Good enough reason to dislike Vista?
Edited 2008-07-25 00:02 UTC
What’s the hardware?
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550, 2GB RAM, 750GB hard disks, Geforce 8600 GTS. Good enough for Vista.
Vista SP1 might work here, but I’m out of nerve. It took quite some effort (and money) to find out that XP and Linux work fine and cover all my needs (while Vista gave me peptic ulcer).
Edited 2008-07-25 00:27 UTC
Use whatever works for you. But my experience has been that SP1 fixed a lot of issues for me.
Have you actually tried to contact the hardware vendor in relation to its crappy drivers? They ARE responsible for the drivers, not Microsoft.
It’s this sort of BS that really pisses me off with some of the osnews whinging crowd.
DAve
If the driver is shipped on MS Vista distribution CD’s, it is Microsoft’s responsibility. Many of the HW vendors are no longer in business. If the driver doesn’t work well and/or destabilizes their OS, why oh why do they include it with their OS? Even worse, why doesn’t Vista include drivers for Microsoft branded wifi cards? If a linux driver doesn’t work the people blame linux, if a win driver doesn’t work you should blame MS.
Ah no. Just because a company is bust, does not mean that someone *else* does not own the trade secrets, patents, trade mark, and code etc. Quite often, that will stop say, Microsoft, or others, from being able to develop them any further.
Let’s consider Creative as a solid example of lack of driver effort from the vendor. The soundblaster live! is a immensely popular piece of hardware, present in many millions of PCs around the world. Does Creative provide Vista drivers for it? No. Do they have any intentions of doing so? No. Why? Because they hope that you give up and basically buy a new product, meaning more profit for their greedy shareholders. It is about time that governments started legally overseeing the software and computer hardware industries, forcing manufacturers to provide drivers for reasonable periods of time, forcing them to port drivers to alternative operating systems. For a consumer product, software etc is almost entirely above the law. Does that really sound right?
Microsoft does a pretty good job of it – sure, they’re not perfect, but Linux isn’t either – DON’T even get me started. I’m sick and tired of blind Linuz zealots protecting Linux and all its myriad of problems, and then bashing Microsoft at the smallest of issues.
Dave
Yeah Blue Screens are a small issue. You seem to have avoided the part about including the faulty drivers with their OS distribution. If they distribute it, they should have acqired the rights to fix it. BAD BUSINESS MODEL
I have three major experiences to share using Vista.
1. October 2007 my father bought a low-end Gateway laptop which came pre-loaded with Vista. The reason for the purchase was to run the Pianomation unit on his player piano and stream MIDI files to the piano. Come to find out after getting the unit setup that Vista has had MIDI output support removed from the control panel audio controls. I did end up finding a small kludge of a utility that does a registry to get the MIDI output to work and run the piano. I have yet to find a more “clean” way to get around this.
2. I briefly had a copy Windows Vista Business running in a virtual machine on my Linux desktop box. Vista is pretty, but is as dog slow in a VM as it is on that low-end laptop that dear old Dad bought to run his piano.
3. Tuesday of this week I found a sweet deal on a Dell XPS M1330. It came preloaded with Vista Home Premium. I didn’t even give Vista a chance to contaminate my new laptop. I booted right from a Kubuntu CD and wiped Vista right off. Kubuntu runs very nicely on the laptop and I look forward to things just getting better all the time.
Vista will have no place on any of my machines physical hardware. I may boot that VM on different hardware some day just to see if it runs any better but I’m keeping my XP VM around for tax time. After reading the EULA for Vista, even if it did everything the Marketing said it was going to do I would not run it.
If you want to run games on a PC and nothing else, get Vista. Otherwise stick with XP or a Mac or Linux!
I personally don’t see any sufficient reason for me to upgrade my home pc from XP to Vista. I also see Microsoft as more of a gold digger for bringing out so many flavours of Vista with so narrow of differentiation between these flavours. This was a definite turn off for me so unless I happen to get Vista with a laptop, I doubt that I will ever move to Vista.
Hey, I really don’t get the Vista bashing.
I’m running Vista Ultimate on my computer, which consists of 512MB ram and a 2.8GHz P4. It runs no slower than a modern Linux distro.
I like Vista much better than XP, too.
Go ahead, Digg me down for my opinion.
Here’s a screen of my Desktop too:
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/5198/vistaau0.png
I got dugg down almost as much as I was dugg up
Nice, but I used Linux distro’s that looked as good or better with 3d effects. Not saying your’s is bad just that vista isn’t all that.
Meh. I feel that for the most part, Compiz is overly feature rich, and that I almost always have to mod it down to the point where I’m running almost nothing. I think Vista does it in a much more elegant way, to tell you the truth. Another thing is that Vista has been much more stable for me compared Compiz.
The pricing ‘shell’ game Microsoft played was what killed Vista.
Vista Editions:
Home Basic
Home Premium
Business
Enterprise
Ultimate
Retail Prices:
$199
$239
$299
License only
$399
Upgrade Prices:
$99
$159
$199
License only
$259
The thinking at the top of Microsoft, mostly billionaires, please correct me if I am incorrect about that, did not believe people would shun Vista.
Consumers and PC retailers did not flock to Vista like it 3.1 users did for 95 or 2000 users to XP. They did a simple calculation and rejected the product that was rushed to market.
Maybe Microsoft hasn’t changed but consumers have?
Vista is Fantastic! Try the 64 bit release of Ultimate on a modern machine! Lock down your daily user account in the users settings in control panel. You won’t have any problems like me.
I think people go overboard with the negative MS hype. Particularly now that there are so many other options available. If anything, the Mojave project shows what a bunch of dopes people are.
I use Ubuntu as my primary OS. In fact, I replaced Vista with Ubuntu. But to be honest, Ubuntu has just as many rough edges as Vista (if not more). That said, I’m sticking with Linux mostly because I like the CLI and am comfortable with the file system layout. But I don’t have quite the negative perception of MS that I once did.
The reason you might not have such a negative perception of MS is that you moved away from depending on their stuff. When you are forced to use their stuff on a daily basis (after getting used to alternatives) you realise just how clunky things are in the Windows world. Everybody has to find hacks, or pay someone to provide you with a hack (utility software), to make things bearable. It’s just the “grass is greener on the other side” in action that make you not care less about the creaking-at-the-seams mass that is Windows.
Sure vista isn’t bad, NOW, but its been over a year and MS has released a service pack and many updates to fix the issues.
They can’t be surprised that the damage is done though, I mean there were serious issues when it launched, it was not ready for prime time.
Add to the fact that the revamped GUI is simply not enough of an incentive to upgrade over XP and its no wonder people are sticking with xp.
In many ways, the recent emphasis on Windows 7 development seems like a large-scale version of the “Mojave experiment.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft essentially took their plans for Vista SP2, then search-replaced “Vista SP2” with “Windows 7” in an attempt to escape Vista’s bad press.
I spent several hours having fun times with Vista today. First problem was things showing up twice in t he start menu. You could only get rid of one of them though. Then I had fun with the damn profiles. Some app settings are stored locally and per user. Which means that they dont travel with roaming profiles. These include the settings for CS3 and Visual Studio. Which means that everytime our students start the app, they have to wait for the system to set up the environment for the first time. YAY! So glad we moved to Vista. Then there is also Director which wont run unless you are Admin. Vista IS crap.
Okay, the reasons I hate Vista:
1. EXTREME Bloat – natural consequence or progress, sure, but this is just overkill in Vista.
2. DRM – need I say more?
3. EXTREME hardware requirements.
My Radeon 9200 SE is unable to run Aero, though it
is very capable of running Compiz in Linux without
MUCH effort – and with considerably more effects!
4. Slow to boot compared to XP (but not Linux)
5. I just installed Vista Home Premium this evening and the installation already corrupted itself. Trying to shutdown always causes a bluescreen. No power management works ( this is NOT a laptop or OEM box, but standard generic home-grown machine which runs nearly every OS thrown on it (except Vista) ).
6. User interface design & immutability – Why, oh why does the machine just shut down when I hit the icon which at one time ( read: in XP ) was used to Shutdown/Restart/Hibernate/enter Standby?? WHY?? Why is 1/3 of my screen always taken up by something USELESS??
7. UGLY ( without Aero [and with, IMO] ), seems at least a LITTLE effort could have been put forth to ensure that the Home Basic look&performance was improved ( ESPECIALLY when the Vista is a ‘Premium’
version, but the graphics card ‘cannot’ support Aero ).
8. 40 GB Partition minimum ( in Premium, anyway ), it doesn’t matter that the partition is an 1 TB drive, only that the partition is 39.998GB, which is less than 40.00 GB.. grrr…
9. Partial loss of compatibility. Either do it all the way, or not at ALL. Microsoft should have kept Vista as a new line of Windows requiring new programs, and provided an embedded XP for compatibility on all levels.
10. Integration of the old w/ the new : It just seems stupid to click on the cute little link “Change Display Settings” and have a d**n Windows 95-era dialog pop up! This is INCREDIBLY prevalent in Vista and terribly inconsistent.
Now, don’t be mistaken, I understand why Vista is the way it is: Poor management, incoherent & loosely enforced UI guidelines, ‘market’ reasons ( HW vendors need more money… though they will get it anyway through the OEM channel, some companies will fair better than others ), among many other reasons.
But regardless, I hate Vista MOST OF ALL, because it is the most difficult POS to work with when trying to repair a customer’s machine. In XP I could do most things in just a few clicks ( on my first try ), with Vista, even after much experience, it will take me MUCH longer.
True, I charge by the hour, but I have other customers waiting in line, and either I look like a freaking idiot trying to do something simple ( though much of the simple things are still easy enough ), or it looks like what I’m doing is 10x more complex than it is, which causes my customers to refuse to try and get a grasp of what I’m doing for their own benefit.
I work on computers mostly as a hobby, my efforts go entirely to trying to ensure my customers only call me when they themselves screwed up, were infected with something beyond their control, are having hardware problems, or want to upgrade their computer.
I want to be there for two hours and be able to charge for two hours, because I’m not paid between sites. When I have to work on a Vista machine, I can pretty much be assured the customer will be unwilling to learn the simple ( yet complex in appearance ) tricks to avoiding their re-occurring issues.
Of course, many of these concerns applied to XP when it was new, but there at least I found many more improvements than detriments. Vista has its upsides, but they are far outweighed by its many pitfalls.
–The loon
what I notice is that it’s just not very stable. my pc downstairs, which is a lot slower and less memory, doesn’t crash or freeze as often as this shiny vista pc that I’m using now.
The reason I, and pretty much everyone else in our office, dislike it is because, quite frankly, it blows chunks.
Granted, when we first got in the laptops it was all fun and games and “wow, this is pretty neat”. First impressions: Good.
Unfortunately, we have to get work done on these things, not just sit around and look at the pretty colors.
Firstly, it’s sluggish as a sloth and we’re using it on modern, “designed for Vista” laptops. Sure, it boots fast but on the other hand when you log in it takes forever for the desktop to be usable. Even after the disk churning stops it’s awfully sluggish.
While UAC in itself isn’t all that annoying what is worse is that sometimes it takes a damn eternity between the time that you start the application and the dialogs actually appear on screen. You start an application, put on a pot of coffee and is left sitting there thinking “Wtf? Did the program crash before it started? Is it not working? Hey, my coffee is ready!” while absolutely nothing happens.
Also, it’s a nightmare finding the actually usable view for configuring network connections. That hole “peer networks” or whatever the hell it was called sucks Satan’s member.
In short, it’s the usual from MS. Good ideas botched by horrible execution.
Yes, lies are needed to like Vista and you’ll be telling them to yourself to justify having it installed.
Edited 2008-07-25 06:02 UTC
Biggest problem with Vista is the x86 version. The one OEM’s push is crap.
Case in point.
Dell 1525 Laptop with 2Gb ram. Comes preinstalled with Vista x86 Home Basic. Crapped itself within a few weeks of useage. The amount of garbage Dell installed on it really pissed me off as well.
Upgraded to Vista Business x64, runs Aero fine on the Intel Video chipset and everything just works.
Get rid of annoyance of UAC and have a more Unix like Security system, enable the Administrator Account and have your account with only User Priveledges. Now UAC will run no different to Sudo.
Want to install programs and not have to use Admin rights to run them? Then install them to a new folder with User priveledges. Then you will not be prompted for Admin rights for that program after installation be it games or any other peice of software. Keep the OS files safe in their Program Files folder.
MS could have done a little to streamline Vista in this regard but on the whole my experience in supporting Vista x64 is that it is a very robust OS and the only thing that has let it down has been OEM’s lack of support and Drivers. MS shot themselves in the foot by releasing the paltry x86 version and their marketing greed with so many versions.
DRM is a non issue if you use 3rd party media players in Vista. Never had a problem with DRM in VLC or Foobar2000.
Use my main system as a graphics workstation and gaming machine (work from home) and since I have ironed out a BIOS problem in my XFX 8800GT Video Card, vista has been rock solid with full support of power down options like suspend to ram.
For me – Linux ain’t ready and OS-X (Snow Tiger looking good) is more Hardware restrictive than MS Windows. Activation – easiest way to deal with that is run a crack. They work and f- the activation garbage if I have to test clients hardware on my system to trouble shoot stuff. MS needs to get rid of activation and simplify Vista to 2 versions
Vista Business x64
Vista Ultimate x64
Anything else Vista wise is a waste of time.
I also use vista every day. I know why people hate vista…
my brother works the help desk so he has to actually deal with it. He hates it.
… invented 6 years ago..?
i won’t tell why i hate vista but everyone around me is installing XP because they say ” it’s a f… mess”. and i have to agree just take a look at control panel. i never got used to it. oh and that some apps won’t work in vista and they just don’t want to make investments to upgrade this apps because they don’t need to and it will be to expensive. i’m on hackintosh and i can’t say it’s perfect but for me it’s the best solution. no dialogs that get on my nerves, *nix terminal that i use very often, ports (apt-get-like thing) and working adobe products (that’s why not linux or bsd). it’s all i need from OS
…but the real problem is that XP is so much better.
I am not exactly Linux fanboy, but when I am about to choose an OS for the “real work”, I favor XP over Ubuntu, but in any case Ubuntu over Vista.
I tried to like Vista. I could sustain it only for one month, then downgraded to XP. First, I had endless problems connecting to Windows Server domain, second I could not live with terrible speed (on 2GB 2Ghz Core2 Duo).
I guess most peoples that say “Vista is as fast as XP” bought Vista with new computer and never tried to install XP on the same machine. Try it, you will be stunned how fast your HW really can be
The test machine was probably a $3000 machine with a fresh install of Vista configured for all the hardware and no third party applications. That’s just not a realistic test, let alone budget, for millions of computer users.
The problem is that people expected so much more out of five years of development, and that XP actually allready did fill most peoples desktop needs. If Vista had been a free, optional download nobody would have complained.
This is probably what they need to do in the future. Operating systems are becoming more and more something of a commodity that you can’t charge for.
Sun have already realized that. They offered Solaris 10 for free, even though it probably contained a lot more innovation useful to their potential users than what Vista did for windows users, some of the innovations could even be considered ground breaking. Yet they gave it away for free, presumably in hope of signing more support contracts or selling more hardware.
Microsoft and Apple will need to follow the example of Sun, or open source will eat their lunch. Up until now they have been relatively safe, as what people are stuck on file format problems, and lack of applications.
However, today, open source software tries to include windows. look at e.g Firefox, OpenOffice, QT/KDE4,… This means that there will be a lot less platform lock in. Another factor is that more and more apps becomes web based. Web based apps and service will also be the new source of revenue that will pay for the give away OSes.
Well, Sun never really made money off selling Solaris as a boxed product – that was never their fort~A(c). You got Solaris and paid for a contract. They (Sun) were in the software service business ages ago – opensoucing Solaris was simply the next logical step. Those who wanted support still paid for support and opensourceing has bought a new mind share to the table – new ideas outside the ‘hive’ of Sun.
As for operating systems becoming a commodity, I wonder if Apple is in the perfect place for this. Just think about it, they really don’t have the same sort of pressure that Microsoft have. They’re a complete company top to bottom, and I’m sure with some more buy outs (I’d love to see Adobe bought out btw), a balanced complete system approach will do them well in the long run.
Which brings me to ask whether we’ll see in the future Ubuntu is bought out by Dell (other distributions bought by other vendors too) as the ‘founder’ runs out of money and needs something more secure backing. I can see Dell possibly buy it out, focus solely on creating a Dell like distribution whose sole development efforts is on supporting Dell hardware. I could see this happening as OEM’s becoming more and more disenchanted with playing second fiddle to Microsoft and making bugger all in terms of profit margins. As their margins go down, Microsoft’s margins keep going up.
Edited 2008-07-25 10:30 UTC
where all the complaints are coming from
I’ll tell you. Two of my cousins have recently bought laptops with Vista on them, and when I visited them a few weeks ago, the first question they ask of me [note: when I visit them once in a year for some weeks I always check and fix their computers] was whether there was anything I could do with their laptops since parts of the OS keeps freezing. After checking it out, all I could tell them is try to live with it.
And what can you tell when someone asks how come a company so huge and “successful” as MS could create such an abomination ?
Yes, service pack made a few improvements, yes windows server 2008 is nice (little use for everyday people though who buy the OS they use), but wonderng why people complain about Vista, well, is just out of this world.
Compared to the relative ease of use with Windows XP, Vista sucks. It takes forever to open subfolders in the root directory; ditto for copying files. The UAC is unnecesarily intrusive, and they ruined the search feature. It’s a resource hog that even after 1^A 1/2 years still has compatibility issues. With 2GB of RAM, it runs slower than my XP machine that has a processor only half as fast and 768MB of RAM. It’s a million little aggravations; i.e., it’s another Microsoft beta program.
First impressions are often lasting ones. When I had Vista on my laptop, I really tried to get it to work. But it was sluggish on a brand new laptop (Inspiron 1501), and unzipping a file took FOREVER. I was running Vista Home Basic, so it’s not like there was any eye-candy going on. Yes, I know that I could download 7-zip and be done with waiting, but I’m one of those people that does not like having to install extra applications on a computer just to get something as basic as unzipping a file to work correctly.
I eventually wiped over the pre-install Vista, and reinstalled it myself to see if that would make any difference – it didn’t. Still sluggish. A new OS should not require more memory. It should be refined to be quicker and better. Instead, it was bloated, and navigating through windows wasn’t as quick as it should be.
I dumped Vista 6 months ago, and haven’t looked back. If I have to use Windows, then I’ll boot up XP in VM. But Microsoft missed a huge chance with Vista. I’m hoping their next version of Windows won’t be so sluggish, bloated, and memory hungry. They need to take Vista, clean it up, take a look at Linux for how to prompt for system changes, and then release it. Vista, to me, is nice looking, and if it was quicker, then I’d probably have my laptop dual booting with it. But as of now, it’s garbage.
Every release of Microsoft OS is pushing something that people do not like. Only this time, the resistance is stronger. It has been done before, but why the people are so stubborn this time ? This is nothing new, really, they swallowed it before…….
I agree that Vista is no more problematic than any past Microsoft’s new release, but the perception of those problems is different today.
The next OS is going to meet even more resistance.
Two problems with this theory …
(1) Vista really is terrible, it is not just people’s imagination, and
(2) Microsoft just saying over and over “Vista isn’t broken, it is actually great … la la la la I can’t hear you” isn’t going to fix the problems.
In short … Vista is indeed far more problematic than any past Microsoft’s new release. Vista is deliberately “broken” … it is made to disallow the owner of the machine, who is expected to pay for Vista, from doing certain things on their own machine. How lame is that?
What is even worse for most people is that Vista is notoriously slow. Any other OS at all (that can run on the same hardware) runs significantly better on that hardware than Vista does. Why would anyone pay extra money to hobble their expensive new machine?
If you have an older machine, or even a low-powered new machine (say a “netbook”) … and it can run XP or Linux perfectly snappily but it chokes on Vista … then who is going to get Vista? What does Vista give you other than a larger bill for a more-expensive-than-you-really-need machine?
These are the problems with Vista. Everyone knows it. Microsoft playing marketing games trying to deny these deficiencies is just simply not going to cut it.
Edited 2008-07-25 15:10 UTC
> Vista is deliberately “broken” … it is made to
> disallow the owner of the machine, who is expected to
> pay for Vista, from doing certain things on their own > machine. How lame is that?
It is pretty lame, but every OS Microsoft made, except DOS, was like that. Next OS will push it even further. There will be no “and now something completely different”. In the end client OS and Xbox OS will converge into single software product.
Ask yourself why would anyone buy new PC (except when old breaks down) if there was no Vista, DirectX 10, new Office.
Microsoft is trying to move away from the concept of personal computer. They are trying to create a device that would serve people who do not distinguish hardware from software. They want a box that will limit users to predefined set of actions. The box is a crucial term here, it is not a computer, it is a box. They want to build an enhanced toaster, in fact.
As a daily Vista user, I must say and very satisfied with it, runs better than XP, more stable and faster and secure.
This is a development machine, Delphi, Visual Studio, SQL server, Firebird and tons of other utilities installed, it works flawless.
It is a dell Vostro 1510 with 4gb of ram and a 2gz. core 2 duo with 250 gbs. HD 7200 rpm.
I know it is a powerful machine but it runs better with vista than with XP. Vista precaching simple rocks.
Have you actually *TRIED*?
Not in the same laptop, but I have a desktop machine with pretty much the same harware except for the CPU is an AMD X2, there is where I can compare.
Edited 2008-07-25 15:50 UTC
Well then your original post is moot. AMD have lost the plot over the last couple of years and their chips just seem way too slow.
Always working to get rid of the symptoms and not the causes.
a Microsoft OS, without the words “this sucks” following closely.
Win95 – Wow!
Win98 – Oh
WinMe – Ow!
Win2k – Oooh
WinXp – Meh
Vista – Doh!
—————–
This mono-syllabic review brought to you by the letter ‘W’ and the number ‘7’
That basicly says it. Each new version is generally less impressive as the previous. I would say for the most part is is because it is maturing. But I would say it is mostly because lately there hasn’t been any good competition to it. Linux is still not there (It has all the elements but not quite put together right). Mac OS X is competitive but requires selective hardware. OS 2 Dead (reason for the 95 Wow!).
Well, I don’t have an exclamation point after Win2k (Oooh!), but I feel it weas the height of the Microsoft OS, at least since DOS. I actually preferred DOS and Windows being separate, like the Unixish world. Dos apps were first-class citizens. I used Windows 3.1 as a nice app-launcher (it did pretty well with DOS apps). I believe it was a big mistake to glue it all into one “gooey” interface. C’mon back, Dos!! Only with long filenames, pre-emptive mulit-tasking, better memory management. That would rock, in my book.
I dont know wjat Windows 3.1x you used by the one I and everyone else I know used sucked pretty badly as a DOS-app frontend. That’s one thing Win9x was actually better at.
We already have that. It’s called Unix.
Win 3.x was a big deal at the time, but of course in hindsight had some limitations. However, compared to no multitasking at all, it was good. However, you could always use DESQview or OS/2 instead, depending on how much you wanted to spend. WinNT was more stable, though, than Win9x (although less DOS compatible).
No, we have DOSEMU + FreeDOS and DOSBox. Now if only the big distros would include ’em! For LFN and memory in native FreeDOS, use DOSLFN and JEMMEX (or just use DPMI apps, which usually can overcome any limitations).
(… gets back to helping FreeDOS 1.1 to be eventually released …)
Edited 2008-07-25 22:43 UTC
Right, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about running DOS apps and for that Windows 3.x sucked big time.
Tried FreeDOS recently? Maybe not with pre-emptive multi-tasking, but with long filenames and somewhat better hardware support for recent machines.
I must say, it brought a little smile to my face when I recently booted the FreeDOS installation CD in QEMU and partitioned a usb stick: there’s people out there that still make somewhat elaborate DOS applications! Nice.
I had been using OS7 and 7.5 for years before the first time i tried win95. My reaction was “Ewww.”
Nice one!
I quoted this here:
http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/shlomif-fav.html#osnews-f…
Enjoy your immortality!
Regards,
— Shlomi Fish
I like the fact that Vista is in constant defrag behind-the-scenes, and I kind of like the Sidebar and the bundled games.
The one thing I can’t get past is that Vista’s filesystem performance SUCKS compared to XP. Copying files takes a lot longer than XP or Linux, and games aren’t as smooth without a faster PC to compensate.
How do you mistake a “secret OS” for Vista? I don’t buy it.
Everyone who doesn’t like Vista is wrong and we are right.
And the only way to make them believe our truth is if we lie to them.
I like vista operating systems because Vista isn’t perfect (as if any operating system is), but I just don’t see where all the complaints are coming from. It runs just fine on my old (6 years) machine, all my software and hardware is compatible, and it’s stable as a rock. Microsoft has been wondering the same thing, and after a little test, they may have found out why people seem to dislike Vista so much.
mack
http://www.globalinternetmarketing.net“>Wide
While the test of course lacks vital elements of the whole Vista experience, such as installing, upgrading, hooking up hardware, connecting to the network, and so on…
Well, doesn’t that defeat the validity of the test? In my use of Vista (Business), the worst problem I encountered just running things was choppy video playback, which nVidia later fixed. I only had one other problem at all, that being that gecko based apps would never fully close. Performance was fine, with an Athlon XP (don’t recall speed), 1.5GB RAM, 80GB HDD, and GF FX 5200.
“To be sure, the focus groups didn’t have to install Vista or hook it up to their existing home network.” (Cnet)
Network configuration having too many windows involved, all modal, is still my #1 Vista complaint, and was also my second, chronologically (the first being that I got used to reacting to UAC prompts by reflex within my first half-hour of using Vista, just like any OK/Cancel box; which has never happened with any sudo variant). If the focus group did not have to go there, or other similar places, in the OS’ UI, nor ever encounter a security barrier of any kind, then the test is bunk.
Installing and removing applications, changing display settings, handling network configuration, changing other hardware settings, and running misc. downloaded applications (I use many of the same apps on any OS) are where some of the Vista hate comes from.
They added more dialogs in the way, and more unnecessary options, rather than really change the UI for the better. They run RAM and CPU eating monsters, rather than just change the way they access your hard drive (Superfetch v. a CFS clone on Windows), or run through the FS (indexing v. a layer that makes it as quick as find on EXT3/RFS/JFS). They waste screen real estate. UAC is a bandaid to a badly implemented security model (just in case you misread it, I specifically mean the way it is used on the desktop OS), and nothing remotely like sudo.
All the benefits are more than made up for by the annoying features that Vista can get in the way with. Apple doesn’t need a tightly controlled experiment. Their desktop search works well, without making regular tasks noticeably slower. Their backup feature is practically automatic, and works well (if my main desktop were a Mac, the backup feature alone would be worth the $100+ point release upgrade cost to 1.5). Expose beats Windows’ new task switcher with a wiffle bat (because it stings). The list could keep going on.
MS has some great stuff at the heart of all of the NT-based OSes, and Vista is no exception. But, the overall user experience has gone downhill on Vista, where it has only gotten better on other OSes.
I do hope they get it right with Windows 7, and focus on making the actual user experience a good one, rather than just bolting on features. The core is good. The UI needs to be scrapped and built anew. The design goal should be that the user does not now or care about it.
This Mojave thing was well executed inverse-FUD. I will go home to Arch (desktop FotM) and PCLOS, not Vista.