Comments on: 6 upgrades that are downgrades

The newest products don't always have the best features.

[jtpinhead]

Zune in some ways is a downgrade. The new software loses its real time search, smart playlists, ID3 editor, equalizer, and has a lot less info on a page. Many people on zunescene.com have downgraded their zune software. MS took a lot away on the "upgrade". That said it looks great and wireless sync and hardware is less buggy. i personally like the new software better

[bubazoo]

yeah, I agree with you on hotmail and yahoo.. Thats why I use eprompter anymore, don't have to mess with all those webmail services, that are more spyware problematic then anything else.

The only beef I have with Vista, is its increased hardware requirements. On desktops, this may be fine if you have a gaming-ready system who upgrades their CPU's and motherboards every 6 months, but us laptop users are taking a hit, because you can only put 2 GB RAM max in most laptops, which doesn't play well with Vista at all, especially since video ram is shared with system RAM on most laptops, leaving you with 1.37 GB max on most Vista Ready Laptops, which makes it crawl out of the box, much of less with useful software on it. Thats really my only beef with it. although I've seen worse. I can't believe people still run XP on 512mb RAM, XP on 512mb RAM, is like Vista on 2GB RAM, thats how much its changed, and not for the better if you ask me.

Another good product that was taken off the market, was the DELL Axim series. I'd give my right arm to get my hands on an Axim X5 right about now. I have an X3i, which won't go into portrait mode because DELL decided not to make available Windows Mobile 2003 SE, so I can't put the thing in landscape mode, or WPA-PSK wireless mode, so its pretty much a paperweight for me, but the Axim X5 was the best pocketPC around, nothing even compares to it now, which is a real shame. I have the same beef with the Nintendo Wii's because it don't support WPA modes.

I'm not crazy about the iphone, or itouch either, because not everybody can get AT&T / Cingular in their area. We're stuck with Verizon here, so we're just out of luck, and that just bothers me.

[DarkHawke]

Okay, my last rant about this: with the plethora of blogs that CNET is hosting for its many contributors these days, why can't y'all do a better job matching content to blog category? This "WebWare" blog has seen the worst offenses, including this one. You've got exactly [i]three[/i] sentences at the [u]end[/u] of the [b]entire[/b] post that in any way relates your subject, "6 Upgrades That Are Downgrades," to the topic of this blog, "Cool Web 2.0 Apps For Everyone." What's up with that? Granted the concept of "Web 2.0" is nebulous at best (and just a slick marketing term at worst), but none of the 6 "upgrades" mentioned have any more direct bearing on web sites, apps or services than that they're all in some way computer related. Kind of a wide net, don't you think?

Then again, maybe I'm just being depressingly picky. I know, I get that way sometimes. I get all "inside the box," and "closed-minded" and "trying to make sense out of what other people do." It's a terribly bad habit, I realize, so I resolve henceforth to hold my tongue (and/or my fingers) and not try to "pigeon-hole" any further hugely off-topic blog posts. You can only flail your head against a wall for so long till you realize that wall just ain't gonna budge! ;)

[rafe]

Guilty. The reason this post is on Webware is because of its author: me. I run the Webware blog. I had to get this post out of me. I also posted it to Crave, our gadget blog.

[bigjim01]

I disagree with the assertion that Vista is a "downgrade" from Windows xp, but I guess that unlike most people, I actually know how to use a computer. Leopord is just another knock off from Microsoft's Windows Operating System, and people believe that is is the other way around. Apple has years to go before they get to the ease of use of the Windows Operating System. Linux has decades to go to reach even the ease of use of the MacOS.

[Motyoj]

Leopard a knockoff of Windows? You gotta be kidding me! It's nothing like Windows. Ubuntu Linux is now easier, quicker, and much more stable than Windows now. If you ask me, Windows is the one that needs to do " a lot" of catching up.

[dcfryauff]

I agree, I love Vista, but I am a pretty knowledgable user. I do have problems with no drivers available for some hardware but believe the vendor is simply using Vista as a means to force you to purchase something new. The security can be a pain at times but it is a small price to pay for not having your operating system taken over by a hacker.

[johnrobie]

Ah yes because everyone who "know[s] how to use a computer" knows that if something works well and is stable, you should definitely try to fix it by making it 3 times the size and twice as shiny. Who cares if it takes longer to run, it's got TRANSPARENCY!

[Rick Cavaretti]

Wow, knocks to both Leopard and Linux in one post. Do you work for M$?

[andboo1]

I totally agree on this one. The first sane person I've heard comment on Vista. I think it's a great system on new systems. I've been running it since beta(which had lots of bugs) and I've been very pleased with it as an IT admin. I think the bad press is a lot of hype. I'd put Mac OSX on par with XP. It's a good system. I totally agree on linux as well. I just ended a three week test with Ubuntu and it totally frustrated me. It's still not usable on a daily basis as a windows administrator.

[mefree98]

I also couldn't agree with you more. Vista is an amazing OS and will get much better with SP1, trust me on that, when it comes to speed, RAM utilization, etc. All of the anti-vista press is just like with any 'critics.' They have to hate the good stuff and praise the pathetic trash (yes, Leopard) just so they can different and 'critics.' All you pathetic apple weenies and linux losers, seriously, there is an easy, EASY way to determine which OS is better. The free market. The free market judges all. We'll see who wins. Oh wait, we already know.

[etniko]

That's not true. Leopard (that's the right spelling) is a great OS and is very easy to use. like it or not.

[RELDDAP]

I'm a 67 year old female senior citizen who stared out with Win 3.0 (How awful). I got a new PC last Jan. with Vista installed. Initially I suffered thru quite a number of glitches, the most frustrating being the pop-up that kept telling me I didn't have a genuine version of Vista Home Premium and thereby restricting my use of some of the features until I bought a genuine version. Arrragh! Several calls to HP tech support in India were totally unproductive but contact with MS solved the issue. I just kept tweaking the OS until I solved the other problems and finally got it to behave. Users should not have to go thru all these hoops to have a smoothly operating system but now that mine runs properly, I am a happy camper and, although XP was quite satisfactory, Vista is better and I would not give it up.

[danielroz]

Finally! Somebody I agree with. Most people use only 10% of their computer. Mac OS is designed for people who are scared to use all the features that are available. Serious Mac users agree that Mac is trying to copy windows.

[Trane Francks]

It's disappointing to see how people who obviously don't know about Linux or Mac OS tout Windows as the greatest whatever. The reality is that there really is no such thing as a definitive "best" because what is best is dependent upon what you want to do.

I'm quite at home with Windows, Mac OS AND Linux and have been for a long while. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. I make my living working with (and programming for) Windows-based systems. For many years, I've enjoyed the robust stability of Slackware Linux as my main system at home. Recently, I've come to appreciate OS X on a newly purchased MacBook.

They all do the job. They all may have subtle (or not so subtle) style differences, but they all at the end of the day can pretty much do the job.

[ruidoso]

I am glad people agree with me on Quicken. I switched from Microsoft Money to Quicken a year ago and have been sorry ever since. I can't wait until they have tax software and Money software bundles on sale so I can switch back.

[DrMicro]

Newer is not always better for a lot of products. Ever download the latest software version or get sucked in by the "Upgrade Now!" button, only to wish you hadn't? Well, there is a website called OldVersion.com where you can still get many older software versions. Here's the link:
http://www.oldversion.com/

[etniko]

Thanks.

[JandNLarson]

You missed one: Microsoft Office 2007. Why couldn't Microsoft "phase in" the new structure, providing the "old style" menus as well as the new toolbars, along with tips for use?

[nonpareilsorell]

Microsoft office 2007 is most certainly an upgrade. After years of adding onto the word, excel and powerpoint with features, the program was disorganized and cumbersome. Office 2007 is well organized, more efficient and produces sleeker, sharper documents. The only complaints have been regarding user's inability to understand the system (like yours). A user's inability to switch from a cumbersome inefficient design to a better system, doesn't count as a downgrade. It actually seems that Office 2007 is ahead of its time.

Did I mention that office 2007 produces better looking documents while giving you more control over your documents? Perhaps people will appreciate this in a few year.

[krzymike]

I totally agree that Microsoft Office 2007 blew it when they got rid of the old menu structure or the ability to select it over the new interface. It is almost impossible to find some functions now. In addition, many of the fast keys don't work anymore, such as Alt key, etc.... and Ctrl key, etc...

[sgg]

RAFE NEEDLEMAN - (OR OTHER?) - I have 3 WRT54G and I believe all are "new". Anything one can do except replace them?? I now believe some of the problems I am having is what you are describing - particularly in maintaining connections.

[Spirit-of-76]

Don't just blame the access point, the problem(s) may be with your wireless card. One of the biggest configuration issues has to do with the preamble settings on some of the Intel cards. Make sure that both the wireless cards and the AP have preamble set to "long". Another solution is to reflash WRT54G's with DD-WRT which turns them into a $1000 plus access point.

[phrelin]

Have been using Quicken,...well...let's just say a long time, upgrading each year, and in most years being frustrated. Nonetheless, I haven't really figured out a better model for a software company than getting some relatively small amount of money out of the users each year. I pay them for an upgrade for Quicken and each year's Turbotax. Now you want to talk about disasters, look at their last Home Inventory Manager creation which they have yet to release any fixes since its 2005 release,

[pinkfluffydice]

HEY HEY at last someone else who loves Vista - ok yeah I too admit it has had problems but so has Leopard in the first few days/weeks of been released, but the thing with Vista is that the whole GUI is so much much better and faster (yes ok I admit as long as you have enough hardware specs lol) but lets face it we are always going to have this Windows, Mac, Unix argument. Long may it continue otherwise if everyone had the same there would be nothing to talk about at length, it's a bit like if everyone had the same car, MP3 player and so on.

Long live Vista :-P

[mproud]

I can tell you why the iPod has different cables now.

When the iPhone came out, Apple needed to figure out how to bring the microphone alongside the headphones. They could have done two cables, but that would have been horrible. (Imagine having two cables to talk into your phone. Yuck.)

So instead they built it into the headphone jack. Which is the right idea. All-in-one. The downside is, you can't use the old A/V cables. You just can't. The video travels where the microphone is now.

So now you have two types of cables. What to do?

The idea is, from this point on, if you bought an iPhone, you should be able to use the SAME cable to connect it to your audio or video system as your iPod. Right? If Apple kept the old cables, then any iPhone user wouldn't be able to use the other cables. That would suck.

Also, the upside to moving the connector to the dock is: it's digital, which means much better quality, and prime for hooking up to an HD TV.

That's my theory, and I think it's fairly accurate.

[SatKartr]

I also concur that Vista is an upgrade, especially in comparison to XP Home, which was a dog as far as I'm concerned, much more unstable and buggy. I installed Vista Ultimate on a dell dimension 5150 that was a year old. I upgraded the ram and the video card but saw little performance improvement, Vista worked better than XP Home even with 1 GB RAM and lowly x600 card (i.e., before hardware upgrade).

XP Professional has worked well for me and might continue to be a good choice, however I like Vista better and wonder how much the naysayers are motivated by the primitive desire to bash the giant, Microsoft, and/or envy of those who've migrated to the new improved OS.

CNET should know better than to publish such misinformation masquerading as editorial opinion since early on after the Vista release CNET published an article by a reviewer who noted that Vista was a better, more stable OS than XP even in basic versions on rudimentary hardware.

It seems to me that CNET has devolved into blatant media hype, i.e., presenting supposedly provocative questions that lack substance, like the emails CNET sends with apparently intriguing questions yet once you review the issues it becomes obvious the way the questions have been framed would be dorky even for a CNN review of electronics/computing.

Which begs the question, why am I wasting my time?
SK

[Terryco]

Certainly Quicken has lost the plot. Each revision becomes slightly less user friendly. The New Zealand version my differ from the US one, but here 6.5 was great to use, but prone to a bug that randomly added about $65,000 to some entries. V7 solved that , but was less straightfoward if you had to deal with GST. I stuck with that for several years, but was forced to upgrade when I moved to a 64 bit OS. To my horror i was advised that there was no upgrade path from V 7 to Quicken 2006 for the NZ edition and I would have to start afresh - greart news if you've got 15 years of investment data you want to access! I managed to do a conversion using an intermediate Australian edition, but found that 2006 was clumsy to use and truncated the display of important data (i.e. the name of the investment). Do they do any user interface design or try to find out what people actually want and how they work?

[ericm]

i think you forgot COMCAST PWP (personal web pages). for those that actually use their comcast web space i noticed a completely new interface recently, BUT it is on the west coast only (as of a few days ago), i noticed an east coast account still has the old interface. the new interface takes away the HIT COUNTER and the MAILFORM both of which i was using successfully and, get this, THERE WAS NO WARNING! one of my customers found the problem for me - how embarrassing... seems like the new "site builder" interface is a Dumb Down from the old one - hey, comcast, how about bringing back the features we were using or at least having a viable substitute?! but alas, no, there are no solutions admitted the 1st and ONLY LEVEL of technical help on chat, the MAILFORM is gone forever and the new HIT COUNTER "has bugs". it never ceases to amaze me how @home/att/comcast has grown more and more incompetent as the years go by...

[jabberwolf]

Hmm anyone at CNET older then their mid 20's?
It sure doesnt seem like it. What it does seem like is that there are only 20 year olds or those that simply got into computers after XP came out.

I say it seems like that way because everyone else who reads this retarded vomit simply knows better. XP had its issues with some older software and hardware not being compatible simply because the developers of those products simply saw no need to go back and rewrite drivers.

Please CNET, keep your young ones from making any more retarded articles regarding Vista. Just because they are stupid, doesn't mean everything they can't handle is broken.

[john3347]

Jabber Jaws, you are only showing your lack of experience and expertise with your comments here. I have been owning and using computers since DOS 3.xx days. I have seen and experienced almost every windows version since Windows 3.11 which was laid over DOS 5. Every version of a home version of Windows since Windows 98 SE has been more problematic that the previous version. Vista has been a HUGE jump backward. Every version of an office version of Windows since Windows 2000 has been more problematic than the previous version - especially including Vista. Windows 2000 Pro has been the best functioning and least problematic of ANY operating system Microsoft has ever produced. The shame of all of this is that Microsoft abandoned Windows 2000 after service pack 4. If you were old enough to have ever had any experience with anything other than Vista, You would also know this.

[logic120]

everyone is ragging on vista, i realy like it. the proble is you get i perinstalled on a new computer and all the bloatware scews things up
my new dell had every but know to vista kind and i fought and fought to make it work
formated ran clean instal and all my problems went away
i had drivers that would just disapear programd that would run oneday and not the next
problems with nero itunes printers and scanners after clean install all the problems went away
so i got a new laptop and as soon as it came out of the boc /format all has been well
also you need to turn off vist areo it maks things look great but now worth the system cost
hope this helps enjoy :')

[krunchnik]

I to am a Vista user and I like it so much I have it on a laptop in my livingroom and Vista Ultimate on my desktop in the bedroom,the laptop has ran daily for about 3 months and I have had zero crashes or problems from it.The relibility monitor has been pegged at 10 for over 2 weeks,it just has never quit working.I had XP Home on a desktop that I could not make it go for a week without seeing the famous blue screen,the machine ran constantly hot.I finally crashed it for good,bought a new desktop with Vista and have been happy with it since,no crashes,no blue screens.Ohwell.

[mattumanu]

An Epic Fail fail on your part. The hardware on your computer was running hot, so it must have been XP? Ad hoc, ergo propter hoc? I'm on an HP computer right now, running XP, that I can leave on for days on end till I shut it down and it never runs hot (never crashes either, by the way). If I use your logic, I can say, "this computer runs cool, therefore it must be because of XP"

Did it ever occur to you to maybe get your computer repaired? Perhaps change the Fan, or add one to make it run cooler? No?

Never mind, dude, don't bother to respond. You possess an overabundance of fail.

[adriangal88]

If you prefer a OS to look good and work bad, OK Vista is right for you.
Observe only Windows Update and Defrag in Vista and you will see de downgrade from XP.
Cocerning the way Vista runs programs and the speed of execution maybe another day, another time ...

[mhinnewyork]

I wrote a very similar posting just a few days ago. My examples, software only, were Vista, Leopard, ZoneAlarm and Office 2007. See
New software
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13554_1-9822771-33.html
Michael Horowitz

[dmland]

Maybe it's not in your top six, but iMovie 08 is regarded as a major disaster of a downgrade for people who used more than the most simple, basic features of the beloved iMovie 06 (or 07). HD image quality is worse and many features are gone. The Apple support forums are full of people advising one another to go back. Why did it happen? Best guess out there seems to be that the geniuses at Apple thought the new version would be simpler for most people who only want a basic "put some scenes from home videos together" package.

[spoonman522]

I'm surprised that the author did not consider Leopard as a downgrade from Tiger. I've read varying critiques about the new OS from Apple, and few of them are good. Problems vary from incompatible software, system crashes, and Time Machine not meeting expectations. For an example check out this link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2223921,00.asp