Why Don't You Like Vista?

[Besttechie]

I wrote this article a few minutes ago - I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts.

http://www.besttechie.net/2008/10/15/why-d...-windows-vista/

So why don't you like Vista? Better yet, if you do like Vista, why?

Also, what would you like to see/have to see in Windows 7 to make you switch?

Just looking to compile a list of reasons.

B

[Honda_Boy]

Just gonna Copy and Paste my post on your article:

Initially I hated it for my main rig and would not use it. I had no choice with the laptop as it came with Vista Home Basic 32-bit and I had no spare XP licenses left. Though really I never had to many problems other than minor annoyances out of the laptop. There’s just a few things I don’t quite get why MS did. Like why does the image viewer in Vista lack the ability to display animated GIF’s? Why does the Photos screen saver only display the photo centered with no transition effects, while the XP My Pictures screen saver would show images all over the monitor (or over other monitors in multi monitor setups) with transition effects. Plus other little things. Also the dang security questions for each and every little thing. Actually that’s easily rectified by disabling User Account Control.

Now I had some more problems with the Vista Home Premium 64-bit I had bought for my desktop. First off, it just didn’t work right, it was slow, it took forever to boot and shutdown, my Audigy wasn’t fully functional due the lack of full driver support, I had video issues with my favorite video player (Zoom Player), and a bunch of other things….. well I recently tried Vista again months after SP1 came along. I figured out my Video problem. I just changed the filter in my settings to the same one XP and 32 bit Vista used and problem solved. I bought an X-Fi to solve my sound problems (and god do I love that X-Fi). The slowness problem was completely absent this time, it even started up extremely fast and shutdown really quick as well. The whole thing is stable and runs perfectly.

2 things had prompted me to try Vista again on my main system. For some weird reason, XP Home SP2/3 never ran right on this particular system being slow (like taking longer to load FF3 on an Athlon X2 6000+ with 4GB of RAM that on the older system with an Athlon 64 3500+ with 1GB of RAM), taking too long to start and WAY too long to shutdown, and some program instability. The other reason is retarded but what finally pushed me to do it. Crysis. I bought the game without thinking. I have a DX10 video card but forgot Vista is required for DX10 (I know the game can run in DX9 mode but I wanted to play it in DX10 by golly) so I finally installed it that day. I sorted all my problems out with the OS itself in a day or 2 and ordered and received my X-Fi shortly after to resolve my sound issue (I coulda used integrated but I hate integrated audio).

So now I use Vista on my desktop and LOVE IT! All my apps open almost instantaneously (I’d go make a sandwich waiting for Word 2007 to start in XP), it boots quick, it’s stable, it looks nice (I had 3rd party themes on XP but geez does Vista ever look better) and I just fell in love with my system all over again. My only problem left is the Windows Photo Gallery not being able to display animated GIFs. The old My Pictures screensaver was my favorite (I’d have it set to show my anime wallpaper folder) but the Vista Photos one stank….. so I just copied the XP one from my XP install and added it to Vista

[JDoors]

I know this isn't the kind of information you're seeking but hey, my opinion counts for something:

I still haven't made the transition to an OS that requires phoning home for "permission" to use it. Still ticks me off, even after all these years of OS's requiring it. From everything I know about Vista, "upgrading" to it is NO DIFFERENT than any previous Windows upgrades. I don't know why people no longer expect or tolerate the necessary steps when moving to a new OS (new drivers for old hardware, new updates for old software, increased demand on hardware, etc.), but that seems to be the norm, now: "I want the newest and bestest, but I'm not willing to change anything else." Might be due to "younger" people not having gone through many (or any) OS upgrades in the past, they have NO idea what it usually entails.

[Bubba Bob]

Ive mainly only used when networking some (PCs) together, and even then I hated it.

The My Network area is fairly confusing. It feels like to do some things you have to go around the sun to get to the moon.

Oh, and what happened to "Repair This Connection" to renew the Ip address? Now you have to "Diagnose" then "Repair"? Takes way too long!

Seems like Microsoft changed a lot of stuff to either make it different, or to dumb it down. I must say, I need a laptop. This may push me to Apple

Edited October 16, 2008 by Bubba Bob

[martymas]

ive recently switched to vista basic

and i hate it

unlike xppro witch ive used for several years

i cant find any thing

but i paid for it so i have to put up with it

ime not sure what microsoft were thinking

all they did was shifted the programs around and renamed them

to some

fancy name they thought would attract users

if i could sell this bloody disk i would

but it seems ime the mug

nobody in nz wants it

we have an auction

site called trade me

and there are dozens of these discs for sale

i think microsoft were worried

linux was mass producing ubuntu

versions

so they got this on the market

in a hurry

the security is better than other versions

of windows

much like linux built into the sys

tho you still need a virus scanner

as i said earlier i hate it

and i hope bill gates chokes on his breakfast

for loading this load of sh-----t

on to the user

marty

Edited October 18, 2008 by martymas

[CurlingSteve]

I've only been working with Vista (Home) a short while (well 2 months) so I'm still getting up to speed.

PRO:

(1) So far it seems to reboot much faster than my XP Pro machines do (but that may be due to a newer processor and more memory on this new laptop than Vista itself).

(2) No BSOD's (or GBOD - Green Bar of Death(?)) so far. XP (SP3) still has crashes from time to time.

But that may be my fault, since the XP machines have lots of tweaks incorporated.

----------

CON:

(1) Where did the "File Types" tab in "Folder Options" go?

Along the same line, in XP I can change the icon at the file level, so I can have various TXT files with different icons that represent the contents of the text.

(2) Like everyone else, I turned off User Access Control (UAC) immediately.

But on every reboot I get nagged about that and frequently see the "X" shield in the Notification Area, although it does hide after a while.

I'd like to see the "X" when there's a true problem, but just for UAC OFF is crying wolf to me.

I don't want to turn off Balloon Tips since other programs give meaningful alerts.

(3) In XP I can run a program or batch file when the Low Battery Alert triggers.

There doesn't seem to be an option for that in Vista.

I'm sure after a little looking I'll find a way to do this with a RegEdit ,if nothing else by seeing (comparing registry dumps) what XP does when I add a program to run when the alert triggers.

(4) I'm having problems with several (some very) old programs that run in XP but won't in Vista.

And yes, I've tried Compatibility Modes, looked for Vista patches and so on.

I've had to abandon old favorites before, so this isn't a "deal breaker" issue.

I'll probably go to my old standby solution and setup a multi-boot system once I'm comfortable.

---------

Bottom line, I'd rate Vista slightly better than XP Pro.

Now that I've played with it a bit I've changed from telling people to avoid it (Vista) to try it.

More to come (I'd bet)...

[hitest]

as i said earlier i hate it

and i hope bill gates chokes on his breakfast

for loading this load of sh-----t

on to the user

marty

So how do you really feel about Vista, marty? Sorry. Couldn't resist.

I'm not a Windows user and haven't tried Vista, so I won't offer an opinion about the OS.

[martymas]

hi htest

ime very disapointd with it

i should have com to the board

and asked \

as many of you have used it prior to me buying the dam thing

other than speed wich dosent concern me

it is a bit of a disapointment

xppro is many streets ahead of the dam thing

for instance where the hell do i find the add and remove programs

or the sys specs

just as well ihave ubuntu on the other partition

because i keep reverting back to it

it is just a pity ive paid money for b------t

my son warned me about it some time ago

but because he is a gamer

i thought that is his problems

it isnt very good for games other than speed on online games

the difference is he got the disk for nothing

by fixing some ones compt and got paid with the disk

i bought mine

i belong to a senior net assoc

and my do they give it hell

they all reverted back to xpro and xphome

or some are starting to use ubuntu

i donated 2-3 ubuntu disks to the club

tho ubuntu hasent taken off yet

but i think

this vista thing will

make people turn to an alturnate sys

marty

Edited October 18, 2008 by martymas

[CurlingSteve]

Hi Marty,

As you can see...

I'm no fan of Vista either, but I maybe can help you a little.

"Add/Remove Programs" in Vista is "Programs and Features".

You can still get specs by right-clicking "My Computer" and selecting "Properties", or through "Control Panel/System".

I still prefer Everest for a full system inventory.

Everest Home 2.20 (free) is still around for download from several places and seems to work properly with Vista.

Google will show you where to find it.

Lavalys has updated (but not free) versions.

Edited October 19, 2008 by CurlingSteve

[Matt]

From my comment:

There are so many reasons why I don't like Vista

These all do come from personal experience.

1. Crazy system requirements. There is absolutely no reason to design an OS that is such a resource hog--especially for the average user. The eye-candy isn't even appealing to me.

2. Support for older hardware. The way that vista was built not only demands a newer machine (due to the high system requirements), but many of my peripherals no longer worked. My HP scanner simply was not support, and the software that came with a Creative Zen just wouldn't install.

3. Security. First of all, the UAC is annoying. I know that it can be disabled, but the whole thing is stupid. The average user who doesn't know what they are doing is just going to click 'ok' anyway and the UAC is pointless. Windows should set up 1 administrative account, and other smaller account that are required to type in a password to do administrative things... like some other OSes out there.

4. Cost. Microsoft has already been terrible about this. You'd think that having seven different versions might allow for a cheaper version, but no. The cheapest one is the same price as previous Windows systems, and now you just have to pay more as you go up.

5. The entire NTFS filesystem just doesn't make sense to me. I used to be fine with it because that's all that I knew. Now that I have switched to linux, it's difficult to comprehend what they were thinking. I'd love Windows 7 to maybe be a little Unixish.

6. Stability. I haven't actually run Vista since right around the release of SP1, but still then apps would freeze and the system would lock up.

Some good things about linux:

1. I love that I can update all of my software seamlessly with one command in the terminal. While we're at it, I can install and uninstall programs just as easily. 99% of the time I never have to search the web for an application, I don't have to download and then run through the installer. I can just download and install it with a single command. The same goes for uninstalling

2. It's free. I know some people like linux because they are free to modify it. I like it because its free for others to modify (not me, I don't have the time or the know-how) and its free as in cost.

3. Scalability. If I wanted to, I could run a huge server, a desktop, or even a phone with relatively few modifications. I really hope there aren't any servers running on Vista.

4. Really good support for older hardware. Linux is great at running on old machines. An easy way to resurrect a box you had sitting in a closet. Unfortunately, newer hardware support is often delayed.

5. Choices. With linux I can run gnome, kde, xfce, enlightenment, fluxbox, or a number of other desktop environments on the same OS. With windows, I'm stuck with what they give me.

And some good things about Windows:

1. It's usually the standard. New software and hardware is developed to work with Windows, not the other way around. Because of this, support for other OSes is often pushed back.

2. As a branch of #1, Microsoft and Windows is the primary choice in the business world. There are many ways to integrate with other OSes in this area, but it simply isn't as easy as Windows-to-Windows.

There's so much more to be said here, but I just wanted to get my feet wet.

[martymas]

hi matt you said what ime not very at

ive been so angry

it took a lot of self control to not swear on the board

normally i dont worry bout words i say them like it or not

but the board is a different matter

there may be children

surfin the board

in the past ive defended microsoft

more so in regtards to

xp versions

many usrs condemned

the security of windows

but that is a matter of common sense

and surfing safe

but this mongrel is sending many to linux

and bloody good one

marty

[martymas]

hi matt

when i first bought the disk

i tried it on an older compt

but it was telling me an error occured

and the install would have to be aborted

so i tried it on a newer machine i had here

but it wouldnt install

but by accden foundt i had to

up grade from ex home to

vista

what a load of crap

there was no mention of this on the instalation

info

so i started on the wrong foot from the word go

and after reading your post

i know why now

i cant get the sys to recognise my printer

who started me off on compts

thanks

marty

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Support for older hardware. The way that vista was built not only demands a newer machine (due to the high system requirements), but many of my peripherals no longer worked. My HP scanner simply was not support, and the software that came with a Creative Zen just wouldn't install.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edited October 19, 2008 by martymas

[martymas]

Hi Marty,

As you can see...

I'm no fan of Vista either, but I maybe can help you a little.

"Add/Remove Programs" in Vista is "Programs and Features".

You can still get specs by right-clicking "My Computer" and selecting "Properties", or through "Control Panel/System".

I still prefer Everest for a full system inventory.

Everest Home 2.20 (free) is still around for download from several places and seems to work properly with Vista.

Google will show you where to find it.

Lavalys has updated (but not free) versions.

thanks steve

marty