Author sounds off on Vista's annoyances
After beta testing Windows 95, David Karp was impressed with how much better the operating system was than Windows 3.1. Still, he had a gripe or two.
To share his experiences, Karp started a Web site called "Windows 95 Annoyances" where he posted some of the pet peeves, as well as some workarounds.
What began as a hobby to make his work computer better, eventually became his work. Karp has written nearly a dozen books chronicling the annoyances of each Windows release.
Needless to say, Vista has given Karp another book's worth of material--664 pages worth, in fact. Windows Vista Annoyances is fresh off the press. Karp took a few minutes to chat about the year-old operating system. Below is an edited transcript.
You also wrote a book or two on "XP annoyances." Did you have more or fewer things to write about with Vista?
Karp: Vista was a little bit of a change of pace for me. I've written Annoyances books going back to 1996.
Windows Vista posed a little bit more of a problem for me, or I should say a challenge? It wasn't that it had more annoyances or fewer annoyances. The issues with Vista were more complex. With earlier versions of Windows, you had simple things like programs crashing and features not working.
The problems in Vista are tricky and, with a book like mine, I don't just write about problems. I only write about problems that I can solve or at least that I can work around. The ones in Vista took a little bit more time and a little more creativity to solve.
For example, there's a problem a lot of people have with Vista and that's what's affectionately been coined the "green ribbon of death." It's the little green progress bar that goes across the top of Windows Explorer and sometimes it just seems to linger there and everything stops working. That little green ribbon is the symptom of a lot of problems and they are all quite different. There's one having to do with codecs for video files and there is one that has to do with security when copying files over a network.
A fair number of people have been annoyed by Vista. What's on the top of your list?
Karp: The thing that ticks me off most about Vista is probably a minor quibble to most people. But it hits me every day. There is a feature--it's kind of convoluted--that allows Windows Explorer to show folders containing different items in different ways. For example, if you look at a folder full of photos or videos, you see thumbnails. If you look at a folder full of MP3s, you'll see a detailed list of artist names and track titles and track numbers. Basically, Windows Explorer is designed to automatically show you a different view for different types of files to show you the relevant information. The problem is it gets it right infrequently. It gets it wrong most of the time. It will show pictures as music files. It should be something that's so simple, I think that's part of why I am annoyed by it.
When you talk to other people about Vista, what do you hear most often?
Karp: There's kind of two camps when you are talking to people who use Vista. There's the "I can't believe I upgraded to Vista; how do I get back to XP?" What's funny about that to me is that I pretty much heard exactly the same thing when XP came out six years ago: "Oh my God, I hate XP. How do I get back to Windows 98?" What I think whenever I hear that kind of a comment is, "Yeah, I get it, it's frustrating to use and a lot of the things don't work, but the previous version wasn't any better, you're just used to it. You are used to all of the problems. You know how to get around all the quirks."
In the other camp are the people who use Vista and aren't looking for a way to downgrade. They recognize the things that it does well, and they also recognize the things it doesn't do well.
Everybody sees that Vista has shortcomings. It's kind of divided on how severe those shortcomings appear. Some people are just willing to throw it away and say, "Hey, give me the older version." Other people notice the shortcomings and see them, but feel they can live with them.
My book is written toward both camps. To be honest, I very rarely talk to anyone who loves Vista and is just enamored with the whole experience, which is really a shame. You talk to any Mac fan and they just love every single product that Apple throws at them.
It's not that the Mac is any better than Windows, it's just that people like it better. Windows users don't have any problem seeing the faults of their platform, which I respect. One of the reasons that I wrote this book is the book helps fix the problems.
You don't just note annoying things. You also offer tips on workarounds. What are some of the best things people can do to improve their Vista experience?
Karp: The first thing that I felt like fixing when I was playing with Vista...is the search tool. Microsoft has gone to great lengths to promote this new search tool. At the top of every Windows Explorer window, there's a little search box. You type something into the search box and right away you get all the matching files in the current folder and subfolders. The problem is that it doesn't work very well. Often the searches are out of date. You can be looking at a folder full of JPEG files and in the search box say, "Show me all the JPEG files" and it will show you nothing. Other times it will just take a long time to show search results. The search is something that I use quite a bit. It's how I find my stuff.
The good thing is there are several things you can do to improve searches, like indexing more locations. You can tell the search tool where to index. By default it only indexes files in your documents folder. It doesn't index files anywhere else, for example, your desktop. There are some really easy ways to go into the search tool and add new places to be indexed and remove places you don't need, so your searches can be faster.
Another thing you can do to speed up and improve searches is to remove Vista's built-in support for ZIP files. Vista supports Zip files out of the box. Removing that does require a registry hack. Once you get rid of it, you can install another program to handle zip files which has the added benefit of doing a better job. By removing the ZIP (support), it speeds up searches.
How did you get into the business of writing about annoyances?
Karp: In 1995, I was a beta tester for Windows 95. Being the geek that I am, I wanted to play with it and I wanted to see what I could do with that. Windows 95, which had plenty of its own problems, was just such a huge leap. Microsoft has done nothing like it since. There were so many things right off the bat that were so obviously done wrong...some of which still don't work in Vista today.
Features like those were things I was interested in fixing. This was going to be my computer. This was something I was going to use for my business, and I wanted it to work better. I wanted it to be faster. I wanted it to not crash so often.
I started a silly little Web site called Windows 95 Annoyances and started listing some of the problems I had found and some of the corresponding solutions. Some of the problems didn't have solutions. Almost immediately other people started writing in. A few months later, an editor at O'Reilly saw this page. He said, "Hey, how would you like to put this into a book?" I said, "OK." It's been about a dozen books, and here we are at Windows Vista.
Do you think Microsoft will keep you busy full time, or will you have to move on to Mac or Linux annoyances?
Karp: I never seem to run out of material. There always seems to be something to write about. It isn't just annoying little problems you can fix. I write about different ways to hack the system, how to change the start-up logo and the shut-down logo. No matter what Microsoft does, there are always going to be a lot of things that drive people nuts. Look how many people want to go back to Windows XP. That software was written in 2001.
I don't see any danger in running out of annoyances. There actually is a Linux annoyances book. I didn't write it. I don't think a Mac annoyances book would ever sell because Mac people don't find their computers annoying. Whether they are or not is a different matter.
What's next for you?
Karp: Some rest. I put a lot of time into this book. There's a book I've been wanting to write on eBay, a strategy guide. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is coming out in a few months, so expect to see a second edition of my book.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.
that people like it better."
That statement is contradictory and in the contradiction is why Mac
people don't find their computers annoying. Mac OS X is actually
better.
Since OS X 10.5 came out, the most annoying thing to people is the
design of the dock. LOL!
They don't require the use of the terminal.
Last week at lunch he was bragging to me about the how many fracticals per second he could do on his MAC, and Asked how many could I do?
I said Don't know, I get 120FPS in WoW? what do you get 50?
The another day it was about how he could take any Linux app he wrote and port it to mac with no problem.
A few days later he was sitting at his MAC reloading the OS. What happened? "My app port borked my system" ohhh
When leopard came out, he sat there looking at the Blue Screen, then jumped on his XP box to talk to some people in Chat about how to fix it.
"Oh its not a MAC issue, the "Third Party" App" was not up to MAC standards and screwed my upgrade up.
Yesterday I saw him with his Wife's I MAC "Again"
Whats up?
"having some issues, need to RMA it"
This the 3rd forth time the past 2 months isn't it?
"Yah, I'm confident Apple will get it right, at least I don't have to suffer like you do with your Vista"
Oh? I did not know I had problems?
But anytime you talk to him MAC is God.
That is the difference. Some MAC users are blinded, they will not even see a problem if they sit there in front of a blue screen. They will over pay for a Phone, they will stand in Huge lines with shaved MAC logo's to buy the newest thing.
When Apple was king of the Home PC market with the Apple, much of there sucess was due to the Open Concept of there hardware and OS.
IBM and the rest took notice and moved away from Proprietary hardware/os. And moved to a more open style. Allowing almost anyone to make hardware that would work, allowing almost anyone to write apps that would work.
About the same time Apple moved away from the Model and moved to the closed model. With in years, almost every computer lab in High School's and Universitys saw there Apple Labs vanish, replaced by the PC.
Market share dropped to near nothing, with only the most Fanatical of Fanatics hanging on.
What still makes the PC work is almost anyone can tinker with it, you have a HUGE choice on hardware, and Software. And if you want you can still go down into the Gutz of the OS and tweak it.
I think what pissed my co-worker off the most was last week, when he was stuggling to get his PVR running with his MAC, I said "Mine Just works"
*shrugg*
Don't get me wrong I don't dislike Mac's. My wife uses a Mac laptop. And, I just ordered her a new one for Christmas.
Then my other sister started accusing me of telling her what to get, but the former accused me of forcing the latter of getting a Windows based machine. If she wanted a Mac, I would have told her to go to apple.com. The only thing I told her to do was what to put in the laptop so she would get one that would actually work.
From my experience, it seems that Mac users get brainwashed. It's rather creepy!
people like it better." Have you ever used Mac OS? I agree with the
other responder who stated that the only problem with Leopard is
the new Dock. Vista is incredibly convoluted. It takes more clicks
to accomplish most tasks. They have tried so hard to "Dumb
Down" Windows that they really need to throw in an option to turn
those features off so that you can efficiently work.
using it changed someone's life they really need to get out more.
Apple "throws at us" and we are incapable of acknowledging flaws.
Well, excuse me for being an Apple fan. I work with both platforms
almost everyday, and I will take the Apple OS anytime over the
Windows OS. Nevertheless, I am perfectly capable of acknowledging
flaws in the Apple system. There are just so few compared to Vista.
Programs to follow that soon after (yay)
http://www.thetecharea.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=14442&view=findpost&p=155348
1. Drivers for HP 4215 don't work on vista. I tried many times
2. Nero 7 wouldn't install. Even the update wouldn't install
3. DVD drive would just disappear. To get it back, I would have to tweak the registry!!
4. Bluetooth issues
5. Try any shareware for XP. They would crash most of the time unless you change the freaking compatability settings. How would Joe blow would know such a thing?
The list is goes on and on. And, this is all on a nice standard IBM T60 notebook!!!
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=2093&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=351118&lang=en
They work, have a Vista 64 Ultimate same printer not a problem works fine.
2)Nero 7? Well 7.5.7 is the Vista Compatible one, and it works fine, I use to use it till I upgraded to Nero 8, which also works fine.
3) Most likely have to do with your Nero install.
4) Blue tooth? In which way? I have a Logitech Blue tooth keyboard works fine, even syncs up with my phone, and that was out of the box.
5) Try any Shareware for XP, it will crash on Vista unless you run it in XP Compatibility mode. Umm not sure how to answer that issue.... I'm pretty sure Joe Knows if its shareware and says for XP, that there is a chance you may need to run it in comaptibility mode on Vista.. or check to see if the author amde a VISTA version.....
Maybe its more user then OS/Hardware..
This guy had no issues.
http://slashstar.com/blogs/alex/archive/2006/08/10/LenovoIBMT60CompareM400.aspx
2. I've been running Nero 7 Ultimate Edition on Vista for over a year. I even use the Media Center plug-in for Nero to burn recorded TV to DVD. Works fine... but if you have an early release of the Nero 7 software you need to install a patch from Nero to make it stable in Vista. The patch can be found here: http://www.nero.com/eng/support-nero7-tutorials-vista.html
3. Microsoft is not responsible for writing stable drivers for the T60. Lenovo is.
4. See #3
5. Try any shareware for Windows 95 on an XP machine without changing compatibility settings and observe the same phenomenon. Joe Blow would know such a thing very easily by pressing F1 and actually reading the help menu. If Joe Blow cannot figure out how to RTFD, he should be using a Mac, not a real computer.
Sounds like you may want to contact HP for help with their products and support. I would not go to Ford for help with my Chevrolet, nor would I call the Chevy 'crap' because the Ford doesn't have any parts that fit it.
"2. Nero 7 wouldn't install. Even the update wouldn't install "
Again, look at #1. Check Nero's site and you'll find other people have had problems with this before. It's an issue Nero is trying to address with their own software, not Vista. Again, blaming MS for Nero not releasing workable software doesn't make sense.
"3. DVD drive would just disappear. To get it back, I would have to tweak the registry!! "
Took less than 30 seconds online Google to see that this happens frequently when your DVD drive hardware is starting to fail. It doesn't matter what OS you are running- when the hardware starts dying, you have to replace it. Perhaps you should blame Apple or NASA or Chuck E. Cheese for this issue- they have as much to do with this drive failing as Vista does. Go get a new drive.
"4. Bluetooth issues "
What issues? If you give no example, then it is invalid. I could just as easily say "Elvis issues." And that means.... ?
"5. Try any shareware for XP. They would crash most of the time unless you change the freaking compatability settings. How would Joe blow would know such a thing? "
I think you answered your own question there. XP is not Vista. Vista is not XP. They don't even share the same letters. Please don't confuse the two. The water pump for a Ford doesn't fit my Chevy. Quite obviously this means that the Chevy is defective by your logic. Or it could be that they are two different products and it would be silly to think that software written for one OS would work on a different one that it wasn't not written for. I'm just saying...
"The list is goes on and on. And, this is all on a nice standard IBM T60 notebook!!!"
Ah, an interesting system. I have to work on those machines quite a lot. High rate of system board failures, and they all have a design defect with the LCD. If you haven't replaced the LCD, you will be. The bottom third of the screen goes out due to a defect in the design. Replacement screens also fail due to the same issue. Right now Lenovo is not acknowledging a defect, but you can have the screen replaced at no cost (unless you are out of warranty) and then replaced again when it fails again (and it will). If you let the warranty expire, then you're looking at a $1200 repair.
I couldn't do that with Mac OSX Leopard 10.5, I had to downgrade back to Mac OSX Tiger 10.4 in order to prevent data loss and system crashes.
The new Leapord OS has its own set of issues. I own and Mac and use PC at work.
Mac has the upper hand but to project Vista has horrible and latest Leapord as perfect is wrong.
The author clearly says ....
"It's not that the Mac is any better than Windows, it's just that people like it better."
"I don't think a Mac annoyances book would ever sell because Mac people don't find their computers annoying. Whether they are or not is a different matter. "
At least Vista has 101 fixes, Leopard has none for its annoyances.
Pros: A lot of people use it
Cons: A lot of people use it
Mac
Pros: Fewer people use it
Cons: Fewer people use it
I HAVE A MAC ANNOYANCE. NONE OF MY BUSINESS SOFTWARE OR GAMES WILL RUN ON A MAC. Sure I could load windows on a mac but then its not a mac. Running the top pc games on a mac with windows is not the same as with a custom made pc. My scientific software for college will not run on a mac.
That said, the points he brings up are interesting and apply to many OS's. I appreciate the way he brought it up in a fairly open manner. He's not bashing MS, just noting things he would like to change.
I expect that the rest of the comments in the thread here are all Apple/Windows/Linux flamefest type. Haven't looked yet, but that is what happens if any article is negative about any of those OS's.
Vista was a bigger mess than i ever thought they would put out.
Thank goodness we don't all like the same thing. Otherwise we'd still be using DOS 2.0 and Apple OS.
As long as there is competition, we'll all get better products.
Have a happy holiday season.
But...
I think that Davids assessment of the resistance to "Vista", is not entirely accurate. We have been supporting MS-software since "DOS 3". And, we were beta-testers of both, "XP", and "Vista". So, we really do not have an aversion to the, inevitable, learning-curve, and "incompatibilities" associated with any new OS. However, a general dislike of "change" is hardly what we are seeing as the major obstacle people accepting "Vista". Nor, is the overwhelming rejection of "Vista", truly comparable to the initial, negative, consumer-inertia that "XP" experienced.
"Windows 95" -was- a substantial improvement over "Windows 3.x", but it did have many problems. It was, just that, those "problems" were easily outweighed by the benefits that "Windows 95" offered to the consumer. "Windows 98" was "Windows 95" with about a thousand bug-fixes... making it a very valuable upgrade. "Windows ME" (the last iteration of the 9x-platform), although it did acceptably well in the marketplace, was a failure from a "valuable upgrade", and reliability, perspective. "ME" was clearly a kluged-together, overly-ambitious, final-evolution of an, obviously, aged system.
And, there certainly was some resistance to "XP" when it was first released. There were the complaints against the "Fisher-Price look" (which I have gotten use to, but still, in truth, dislike). There were the initial "incompatibilities and increased system-requirements" (which became less of an issue as the product gained acceptance). And, there was a great deal of animosity towards "Product Activation". In hind-sight, we also now know what a "security" disaster "XP" has been, but, all in all, the move to the "NT" code-base (and the stability, and greater power that it presented) did offer significant advantages over the "9x" platform, generally making "XP" a very worthwhile product (especially when compared to "Windows-ME").
However, "Vistas" market-issues are being caused by much more than a simple aversion to change, or an irrational knee-jerk reaction to some of Microsofts latest marketing-strategies. "Vista" (the last iteration of the older "NT" code-base) is very much, another, "Windows-ME" (obviously poised at the end of one platform-era, prior to a newer, and possibly much better, alternative).
To start out, "Vista" (like "ME") simply was not ready for release. It was, and still is, full of bugs. It does have many incompatibility, and driver, issues. "Vista" also feels -kludgy- in its "new" interfaces, methodologies, and overly resource-intensive integrated-features". The user-interface, simply confuses (and in some cases, overly-complicates) use (without recognizable gain, or apparent justification). And, Microsofts heavy-handed control-tactics (WGA, DRM, software-signing, etc.) are simply infuriating the vast majority of consumers. And, frankly, "Vistas" much vaunted "greater security" has simply not truly manifested itself (it has already been compromised, and shown itself to be vulnerable to some of the same security-exploits as its parent, "XP). And then, there are the issues of versioning and, relatively-high, cost. For these reasons, "Vista" simply does not provide sufficient value to warrant a change. This is why "Vista" has, so obviously, flopped in the marketplace... and why, almost everybody in the IT-field has proclaimed "Vista" to, basically, be a failure.
Even Microsoft, internally (along with much of the computer-industry), seems to now be tacitly admitting that "Vista" is merely a temporary (and somewhat-flawed) product. And that, I believe, is the real reason most people appear to have decided that they dont want it, and have chosen to simply give it a miss, altogether.
Also you state that Vista was not ready for the market place. A question I would ask is what "NEW" product has ever been ready for the market place. Not talking about products that revise or fix issues in previous products I mean new products. Since the end of Windows ME Microsoft has been developing operating systems from the ground up and from scratch. I consider this a new product since it's not just a revision of old code (like Windows ME was to Windows 98SE). We can go on about marketplace readiness until we are blue in the face. I just think that if we are going to look at Vista not being ready, we need to consider all the new products and innovations that were not ready either (can anyone say 802.11b/a?)
You don't just note annoying things. You also offer tips on workarounds. What are some of the best things people can do to improve their Vista experience?
Karp: The first thing that I felt like fixing when I was playing with Vista...is the search tool.
The recommendations in the article do not note anything about the impact of indexing more locations. Vista search is brutal the larger the index gets. It doesn't take much for your machine to turn into an Vista search index bot ... spending all it's time trying to keep this index up to date. This, combined with how slow it is (in some cases dozens of times slower than XP) made me turn back to XP to become productive again.
I work in the software industry and was trying to use Vista at work ... but it was just way too slow. File handling seemed to be one of the major hang ups ... even after Microsoft made available a patch for file handling performance (which you have to contact them directly for instead of through Microsoft Update).
Like when XP first was released, many early adopters of Vista are learning why it's called the bleeding edge. If you want to remaind productive ... always wait to move until SP1 ... or SP2 is released. By then, Microsoft has usually gotten things to a point where they are usable, reliable and perform decently. Before then, look out.
I'm not sure what version of Linux you're using to compare Vista, but it sounds pretty old. May you could pick up a version made in this century and try again.
Not only that it is dead easy to install hardware. On install everything in my laptop is recognized and drivers installed, including graphics and wireless.
If you want people to take you seriously, you need to stay current.
up and runs with it after the reboot if it's an internal part or after
it gets picked up and automounted if it's USB/Firewire.
Connecting to a LAN bit is real easy too - I type in the uber-
archaic URL of smb://some-machine/some-share in the file
browser, or I simply browse for it like any other OS.
Maybe you can come back when you aren't so blatantly ignorant
of what you're talking about?
To be honest, Karpa needs Vista to survive.
- This person should save time
-
by The_Decider
December 14, 2007 9:04 PM PST
- And write about what is good with Vista.
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