Comments on: Making sense of Vista's first year

Beyond "the Mom test," CNET News.com's Ina Fried looks at several factors to try to gauge Vista's impact. One of the most striking? How few Vista-specific programs there are.

[MadKiwi]

Anecdotal story

I am in the process of building a HTPC. For various reasons I don't want Vista (big, slow, annoying/intrusive security etc.) so I am trying to source XP media edition. I have found a source but now have realised that XP support, in particular security patching, will end next year.

So my choice then comes back to Vista or one of the Linux builds designed for HTPC use. Looks like I'll be researching Linux...

[fred dunn]

XP will be in extended support until 2014

at the end of 2009 no new features will be added. But security fixes, patches etc will be avilable until 2014.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy

[JMaloney13]

Vista Feedback

Here is my two cents. Last April I needed a new PC laptop. Toshiba, Costco and others WOULD NOT sell me a PC with XP. I had to use pre-installed Vista. I took a deep breath, bought the Toshiba and started my 8 weeks in Vista h*ll. It rendered my $400 Palm Tungsten useless as it did not hot synch anymore. Six years in development and Vista can't do a Palm hot synch???? It did not work with many of my other programs and there was NO upgrade path available. Lots and lots of calls to Microsoft, Toshiba and others had the usual effect of spreading blame at all the other parties involved and no solutions to my myriad Vista problems. My boss was quite unhappy with my time spent on the tech support lines each day.
How did I solve my woes? Simple, I brought my Mac laptop into the office and got back to being productive with an OS that got along with everything else and just worked. What a simple concept!
Count me as a new Microsoft hater. Vista re-affirmed my love for XP and the Mac OS X.

Jeff Maloney
[e-mail]

[wolivere]

Odd

I have a tungsten and had 0 issues. *shrug*

I'm curious as to what programs. One reason asking is over the weekend I had dug out my old, support portflio with all my old Netware and NT4 win95 cd's. I found an old game in there on CD "Orcs and Human's"
http://www.blizzard.com/war1/

I poped it in the cd drive, and pop up came a dos box and away ran the install. I had to quess at what the IRQ, and memory address's were for the memory card but the dos installer plinked away.

And wham up game the game. In all it 256 color glory. And my daughter played it for a few hours.

But what I really have enjoyed about Vista... It just works.

[lbrasington]

I bought a new computer to get Vista

I did actually buy a new computer specifically to get Vista - but for a very obscure reason: Vista natively supports Tibetan. I needed to see and understand what Microsoft had done with Tibetan support because I built a free Tibetan wordprocessor and database program (http://udp.leighb.com) back in the 90s. My program is still very much in use (400+ downloads a month) and I wanted to make it easy for people to move their data to Word, etc. But unfortunately Microsoft's Tibetan keyboard is terrible - less user friendly than the UAC.

So now I'm "stuck" with a very nice Toshiba laptop running Vista. It's mostly ok ever since I turned off the UAC and made it revert to the Win/2000 look. But I would not recommend Vista to anyone not doing Tibetan on a computer. By comparison I'm very happy with my XP system at my day job.

[snowman83706]

gag @ vista

Vista is a pile of junk! If you are thinking of buying it, don't! If you are buying a computer with it on it, downgrade. I recently bought a quad processor machine, top notch. Vista runs like a dog, security sucks, it's incompatible with everything. Visual Studio 2005, one of Microsoft?s flagship products, is incompatible with Vista. This OS is so bad that I'm actually thinking about buying a Mac. Gross. The designers of Vista need some serious slaps.

[.alin.]

gag@you

VS2005 was shipped BEFORE Vista, thus it cannot be compatible with any later OS. There are VS2005 SP1 and Vista-specific patches for VS2005 that make it work on Vista - check the MSDN site for downloads.

I run Vista without problem on 8 computers, and my slowest machine is a 4 years old dual-proc @2GHz with 1GB RAM. If you can't run it on a quad the problem is not with Vista...

[MRCS4]

Vista = Millennium

...hopefully it will just be a similar dead branch on the way to the next Microsoft OS.

[fred dunn]

AGREED...VISTA= XPME

Remember when Win98 went to 98SE and added Features worth getting it for then they went to WinME where your antivirus had to be written for ME as the 95/98 version wouldn't work. The drivers were diferent.

It kind of reminded me of Microsoft BOB, anybody remember that? Well I'm not going to go so far as to compare Vista with MS-BOB but comparing it with WinME is spot on.

The ONLY reason to buy Vista is for a tighter integrated Entertainment PC with TV tuners and sitting under a giant flat screen with a couple of TB of disk and a really souped up system.

Vista on a laptop with integrated graphics and a 4200 or 5400 RPM drive is a waste of time and it's "eye candy" kills battery life.

[stalexone]

I have some news for you

For what it's worth, I have an inside scoop at Microsoft that says that there is now a lot of momentum behind Windows 7 and likely launch is late 2009. But guess what's under the hood? Stripped down more efficient Vista! It should be a lot faster than what we've all experienced and there will likely be more compelling reasons for people to upgrade to it from XP. I like Linux....so I'll give you the analogy. Vista is to Windows 7 as KDE 4.0 is to KDE 4.X. Vista is the first stop on the way to something better. It just happens to stink now and was a mess for both developers and users. It's really a big learning experience that Microsoft is going through (by studying how to make Windows more like Unix)...and unfortunately that company is so big and monolithic that we customers have just been taken for a ride. NO ONE SHOULD BUY VISTA! It is a big experiment. Wait for Windows 7! Bill Gates told a team of Microsoft engineers that he does not run Vista at home because it doesn't run his childrens' educational apps. Many of those engineers subsequently uninstalled Vista from their home machines (why drink the Kool-Aid if Bill don't?). So there you have it. Too bad Vista was "Bellevue-priced" at $400. Probably better for them to sell it for $99 in Ultimate or Business flavor or as a "Developer Release" to prepare for Windows 7. If you bought Vista you got hosed. That said, I have been most interested in running Vista on my fancy 17" Dell laptop because I'm not adding as much new hardware to that to create driver conflicts, it looks great in WUXGA, I like the power features, and hey, it really does work great on such a controlled hardware system. I'd never run it on my desktop machine though. So, my point is that from my own experience, Vista is more like running Windows 2000 without a lot of drivers and with a Windows XP (not SP2) face on it. Yes, painful it would be but stable enough. Thoughts?

[A_N_Onymous]

I love Vista

I love vista! I don't understand why people complain so much about compatibility, it is the developers of the 3rd party apps that need to take care of that, besides you can't expect to keep compatibility forever. Most stuff that works with XP works with Vista anyways. Vista games well as well, Supreme Commander actually feels smoother.

[Hoser McMoose]

Also like Vista

I also really like Vista, they really did make a lot of improvements in many ways, though obviously they take some getting used to. A lot of things also come down to a personal preference thing too, neither way is particularly "better" or "worse", just different. Fortunately you can revert almost any new Vista feature back to the old 'WinXP' style if you don't like the new way it does things.

As for the compatibility issues, an awful lot of people had problems really early on and almost entirely due to 3rd party drivers. This should come as no surprise, XP went through the same thing and Win2K was worse still while WinNT NEVER got the drivers quite up to par. Mac's are about are pretty terrible here too, but you rarely see the issues because people use such a tiny subset of hardware on Macs vs. PCs.

In the end though, people who don't like Vista mostly come from one of three camps.

1. Those who don't like it because they don't like the new interface. This is perfectly fair in my books as user interfaces are highly dependent on the individual user.

2. Those who don't like it because the hardware requirements make it fairly slow on their computer (Vista does kind of suck with less than 1GB of memory, though with 2GB of memory costing $30 these days that is a total non-issue in my opinion, if they can't afford the memory then they definitely can't afford the $100+ for software and are probably illegally downloading Vista anyway).

3. Those who don't like it because it's Microsoft and they like to whine.

[Warp 10]

Home office Biz user not!

As a business consultant I blew it!

I thought that Vista Ultimate would tightly intigrate and be very beneficial from a media perspective in preparing presentations and combining a whole bunch notes and documents using OCR thru Office Pro 2007. I never dreamed that there was no native scanning and imaging software that could recognize a HP All-in-One Color Laser device. No Recognition no drivers and NO WORK!!

Back to XP Pro SP2--No problem--Except approx 300 man hrs to retro my computer. Very high end quasi server-turned into a slug w/ Intel Quad cor, maxed out RAM, Nvidia 8800-760DDR3,1 Terabyte drives,fiber optic net. Go figure?

[bdaughtry]

MicroSoft's Biggest Failure

Microsoft's biggest problem is they have made upgrading so painful, that no one wants to do it....it just takes way too long. Then, to realize that you've spent all that money on a new quad-core multi-gig system that runs like a dog! Forget it!

It takes me days to reformat Windows and re-install my apps....something that has to be done every couple of years because of pitiful Microsoft housekeeping. Sad thing is most people just throw out their systems at this point and buy a new one. Those are the idiots that keep Microsoft afloat. As a software engineer for over 25 years, if people could look under the hood of that OS, and understood what they were looking at, they would NEVER use it.

It still kills me that Bill Gates became the world's richest man with a product that crashed on national TV with nearly every new version.

[ServedUp]

Why people love Vista?

Well I believe one of the reasons is some diehard users won't
except that Microsoft is losing their touch with ordinary
consumer. My first impressions of Vista was its way to Mac like
but a lot more awkward. Like it wants to be OS X but fails in
many of those areas because after all its Windows.

But Vista is really for those who've graduated from the
troubleshooting days of DOS, Win95, WinMe, Win2000 and XP.
After all if you can put up with those past versions of Windows
(LOC - load of crap). I mean, you'd probably still have a candle
burning, with hopes that Microsoft will atleast improve the next
version right? VIsta - Win7. anyone? What a joke.. hehe

[kromaethius007]

Vista x64; The Diamond in the rough

I've one of the few that has been testing Vista x64 Ultimate for some time. I've rolled it on my production boxes last month and I haven't looked back yet.

I went from XP x86 to x64 over a year ago and in comparision, Vista x64 Ultimate just works, and works well. It is much more stable than XP SP2 x64 ever was and finding the neccessary drivers are a snap if people know where to look for them.

I use practically all the Adobe CS3 suite and have at least two or three of these heavy weight apps running. I do a lot of design work, web work, publishing, and listening to my massive (legal) music collection that is all ripped in lossless technology. I also utilize Office 2007 and have outlook open 24/7.

I am a professional and need things running smoothely between my workstations and servers (running on Server Enterprise 2003) Not only do I have these machines, but several laptops within my home all having Vista x64 running on them. I do not have the slightest problem.

I realize people out here are nowhere near as technical or as demanding as I am, I make a living in the IT Business, and business is great. Vista x64 is a perfect fit. I realize perhaps that I am very fortunate to be one of the few that sat down, read the books, researched, implemented, and thriving on Vista.

There are many operating systems out there, people ought to spend more time and energy finding one that works for them and cut down on the whining and snivelling, its rediculous.

[baeyg]

I agree.

I've been using VISTA x64 for 1 year now, and I also used XP x86 as well. I also feel that Vista x64 is more stable than Windows x64.

With virtual PC installed, I can use different versions and different language versions of Windows alhtough I cannot use 16 bit windows since they are not supported.

Also, it's a real plus that I can utilize more than 4GB RAM with it because RAM are cheap these days.

Only thing I wish is that Sony VAIO could support 64bit drivers soon.

[Penguinisto]

You mean "Coal", right?

Sorry, but 64-bit OSes have been around since roughly 2000-2001 or so... Linux, Solaris, and OSX all have it. Vista (and XP) is late to the game, and it shows.

An actual pro would've known that ;)

/P

[i_am_still_wade]

Vista is a living nightmare

While Vista has somethings to like, it is for the most part, a living nightmare. While I won't fault Microsoft for the hardware incompatibilities, i will fault them for the things listed below:

1) User Account Control is annoying and ineffective. The least you can do if you are going to make a feature like UAC is make it remember what you did already, not prompt you for trivial stuff, and never bother you if you turn it off.

2) Vista assumes too much and remembers too little. In Windows XP, when you make changes to a folder, it sticks. In Windows Vista, you have to "customize this folder" to get any changes to stick. Sometimes, it will go back to the list view the next time you open that folder. And quite often for no good reason, folders will grouped by something, usually by type.

3) Vista replaced the simple, easy to understand boot.ini with a complex, difficult to understand boot loader. Supposedly the new BCD is compatible with the ultra-rare EFI motherboards (unless you are Mac fan). But why couldn't Microsoft make something that is EFI compatible AND simple?

4) 8 mass-consumer versions. Yeah, that won't confuse people.

5) Too much goes on in the background. I have found that performance INCREASES when you turn off the features that are supposed to increase performance. Turn off SuperFetch and Search Indexer and your hard drive may last more than 1 year.

6) The Network and Sharing center feature will give you trouble on a high speed internet and router. Quite often it won't get an IP address. So, you go to the command prompt and type "IPCONFIG /renew" and you get "This requires elevation." Yeah, spyware LOVES to renew your IP address. Turning off UAC fixes that problem, but not the Network and Sharing center having a hard time doing what Windows 98 does easily. Over time, it doesn't mess up. But still, it should work from day 1.

7) What happened to the run command? It is off by default. Unless you turn it on, you must use the search box, which isn't ideal, ever.

8) And the control panel requires you to use the search box to find anything at all because there are so many menus and sub-menus and choices.

9) In my 64-bit Vista, sometimes when browsing, the window for freeze for several minutes. XP x64, which was also based on Server 2003 like Vista, never had this problem.

However, just so you know I'm not blindly hating on Vista, there are some good things about it. It is pretty. It does have a service which detects when you are playing movies and gives the movies a higher priority, which is clever. All in all, once you customize the start menu it is better. I love the DVD maker. It is the best DVD making program I've used to date. And I love sharing HD movies from my Vista to my XBox 360.

Still, the good doesn't even come close to outweighing the bad. I even told Microsoft in my TechNet subscription that Vista is bad. Until Vista fixes the many annoyances, I recommend to my customers to avoid Vista like they would get a deadly plague. I'm not blindly hating on Vista, my hate is defined over lots of time using it.

[maverick_nick]

Good points

I've been using Vista for about 6 months now. I've turned off the UAC, because I think that it's the most irritating thing ever. I remember that in XP I could setup a single folder view to details and then make all other folders like this, but it doesn't work so well in Vista. There are a few issues with network setup.

On the other hand I love the search functionality, and the pretty effects. All of my video codecs work perfectly with WMP11, so that's a plus. I think that IE7 has a memory leak because if I open and close a lot of tabs in a single window, it eventually freezes up or the menu options disappear. So you've got to kill the window and open another.

All-in-all I think that Vista has great potential to be a brilliant OS, but it's simply an incomplete and rushed OS. I'm hoping that it will be a lot better in it's next incarnation, "Windows 7".

[jrm125]

Excellent points

I experienced all those issues as well...

I especially appreciated your thoughts on folder customization. This drives me CRAZY. coming from XP where it "just works" to this random crap shoot drives me nuts.

[Imalittleteapot]

Possibly this.

My friend just told me Vista runs great on his under powered laptop and then horrible (long file copies) on his over powered desktop. So, I suspect people are having wildly varying experiences based on some unknown hardware problem or something. But I've seen similar computers give drastically different experiences myself.

Vista was a lot of work for so many people not to like it. I think I would have just taken XP 64-bit stripped out the parts that didn't work well, and replace them with updated code. Added hardware support for new technologies (high-def, solid state drives, hybrid drives, SLI, multi-monitor, wireless (LAN file sharing)) and large ram support.

Then just modify TCP-IP and focus around heavy server loads and quick responses. Better support for multiple connection downloading. I would have left the DRM sitting on the curb if it was just going to drag the product down. Basically just brought XP in line with hardware advancements that have been made. (blueray, HD-DVD burning).

Maybe try some sort of software partion locking for program files, and system files instead of UAC.

Then stripped out the GUI technology, and add the new one. I maybe even would have drawn a cutoff line for backwards compatibility on super old software, but where I don't know. Maybe not. But that possibly would have allowed some shrinking of the kernel, and a chance to reorganize the default file system into something cleaner.

I would have just let all 32-bit versions die. Obviously MS had problems dealing with two versions. It also makes it slightly harder on device manufacturers, and consumers. Focusing purely on 64-bit would have been better for everyone assuming it worked.

Then add a simpler background file indexer that just indexes certain folders (My Documents, Share Folders) and can report shared folders to a server or over the LAN to allow index searches of files over the LAN.

When it comes to .NET in my opinion they wasted a lot of time with WinFX, WPF, WMF and all that crap. A few good APIs to write better web framework code, and client code to communicate with your web apps would have been plenty enough I think.

That may have bombed to, but oh well. I would say that's why MS makes the OS and not me, but now they're slipping to so I don't know.

[Carion]

Vista is irrelevant

Talking about Vista is a waste of time.
It will eventually be assimilated by The Cube (Beryl/Compiz).
Resistance is futile....

[The_Decider]

Vista is irrelevant

And not because of the equally irrelevant Compiz.

It is irrelevant because it offers nothing new and it badly copied good ideas from Linux and OSX.

A poor copy is never relevant.

[aximuser]

I recommend Vista

I have upgraded to Vista on an older (P4 2.4, 1MB RAM) PC and a new Acer Core 2-Duo (2MB)PC with Vista pre-installed. Both work very well with Vista. I have had very few issues and those have been minor. Vista ships more complete than XP. I therefore have fewer 3rd party apps (eg. DVD codec and built-in ability to burn CD/DVD's ships with Vista). Windows Movie Make works much better in Vista than XP.

I do recommend a clean install of Vista (if you are upgrading) and a separate video card if you have only 1MB of RAM. Vista works just fine with my older PC.

In my opinion, alot of the criticism I hear about Vista is overdone and misleading.

[john55440]

I'll take my Vista Preinstalled!

Boxed operating system upgrades are a pain in the rear. Preinstalled operating systems Just Work. (grin)

[jrm125]

I rolled back to XP yesterday

I built a new computer...blazingly fast system. I thought to myself, oh boy, time to gear up for DX10, better install Vista...

Ugh, 2 weeks later I loathe the thing, and any performance increased I'd get from DX10 are easily negated by the bloatedness of Vista. It's back to XP for me...even if it does cap the RAM limit at 3GB. Couldn't be happier.

[vladimir.orlovsky]

VS2005 vs. Vista

VS2005 was shipped BEFORE Vista, thus it cannot be compatible with any later OS ... WronG!

[vladimir.orlovsky]

Vista vs. XP

Can you provide more specifics...
1. what actually do you like.
2. Compare point-to point Vista vs. XP and Win2000
Thanks
p.s.
less bla-bla-bla, more info... please

[vladimir.orlovsky]

Vista vs. Mac

I think, you are right,
expectation bar [in-windows-world] is so low that ... some people actually think that Vista is OK... sad but true, it's a cruel world after all!

[TaintDeli]

Vista and Tablets

I am by no means in love with Vista, I still run XP on my primary desktop computer, however I have upgraded my aging Toshiba M200 tablet to Vista. Tablets really benefit from the fact that the whole tablet functionality has been integrated into Vista's core, rather than the way it was all lumped on as an afterthought in XP. To run tablet functionality on XP, there were excessive amounts of processes running at start up. Vista just feels much smoother and well-integrated than XP in this aspect. I also appreciate a lot of the improvements that have been made for mobile PCs in general. My M200 feels like a brand new computer with Vista, and actually seems quicker/more responsive.