Microsoft: We know, Vista Sucks

[MarchHare]

This happens every time a new windows comes out. Everyone complains and says it's the worst windows evar, and blah, blah, blah. But eventually everyone will go out and buy it.

That's not entirely true. Both Windows 2000 and XP were perfectly usable at their release, and I happily upgraded to both shortly after they were launched (and even earlier for XP, as I was running RC2 on my main computer pre-release).

Vista is the only Microsoft OS that I've ever used and then reverted back to the previous version (I completely avoided the dreadful Windows ME, though...had I installed that dog, I probably would have gone back to 2000 or even 98 SE).

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

That's not entirely true. Both Windows 2000 and XP were perfectly usable at their release, and I happily upgraded to both shortly after they were launched (and even earlier for XP, as I was running RC2 on my main computer pre-release).

Vista is the only Microsoft OS that I've ever used and then reverted back to the previous version (I completely avoided the dreadful Windows ME, though...had I installed that dog, I probably would have gone back to 2000 or even 98 SE).

Exactly. I never heard issues with Windows 2000 or XP. And for those of you that think it's because we have illegal copies, hate to tell you this, but my company purchased perfectly legit copies to set up our test environment with.

[octothorp]

I've got Vista at work and I don't particularly like it, but it's not really awful. It's just a bit clumsy and inelegant (and driver support is poor). I thought the same thing about OSX when it first came out, but it's made tremendous progress over the various releases, and it's now a fantastic OS. Vista will eventually succeed.

[mykalberta]

What are these magical problems?

I have been running clean and solid for about 4 months now.

Yes there were teething pains with the video card and if i wanted to play an old game it would be a challenge, well guess what, keep your old pos for you old games and apps.

MYK

[Buff]

Vista is fine for the average home user. There are games that I still enjoy playing but cannot play them on Vista because they are old. So some gamers may not like Vista.

Now, in the business world, Vista is not going to immediately be a good choice. Many businesses use legacy software/hardware that won't run with Vista. Upgrade? Sounds easy, but there are many reasons why businesses keep with their current system. Some places don't get the proper IT consulting, some places can't afford to, some places are forced to keep with legacy software due to the nature of their business and the systems the connect to.

I worked at a place where we couldn't upgrade them from 2000 to XP because of their legacy software. They would've been happy to pay to upgrade their software but their software was vital to their business and it was mandated by outside sources that they only use that software. Unfortunately all their outside sources used the same software, and everybody in that industry refused to update the software because it worked. So here I was with a client who was stuck on windows 2000 for the longest time. A patch was finally put out because people weren't able to easily obtain Win2K licences anymore, but they'll be in the same boat for Vista now.

Same with my curernt workplace. We can't consider going to Vista until late 2008 or early 2009 due to legacy software (which will be replaced by summer of 2008). Many tools that we use in the IT department didn't work with Vista ultimate, so we downgraded back to XP. Thankfully we have licensing that allows us to downgrade, many people don't have that option yet.

[Bill Bumface]

I think a more valid topic is Microsoft: We know, orignal Xbox 360's suck

They have extended their warranty to 3 years for the red ring of death. Lucky for me, as my xbox that has been problem free for almost 2 years turned into a big white brick this week.

[psicodude]

I don't get how you guys can blame MS for driver issues. There is absolutely no way that they could guarantee compatibility with the literally millions of pieces of hardware out there. The real blame lays with the hardware vendors that knew about Vista for years, and chose to ignore it.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

That's not entirely true. Both Windows 2000 and XP were perfectly usable at their release, and I happily upgraded to both shortly after they were launched (and even earlier for XP, as I was running RC2 on my main computer pre-release).

Vista is the only Microsoft OS that I've ever used and then reverted back to the previous version (I completely avoided the dreadful Windows ME, though...had I installed that dog, I probably would have gone back to 2000 or even 98 SE).

What part of Vista was not functioning on realease?

XP was hit or miss, just like Vista is. Some people, like yourself had no problem with the transition, others had a terrible time.

[mykalberta]

Yes Vista will not be rolled out to companes because companies are cheap and IT outsourcing is expensive to update a program just to run it on a new OS.

What did people honestly expect, for Vista to be 100% compatible with W98SE2 garbage?

I agree their should have been 100% compatibility with XPSP2 software, if nothing more than emulation within a VM.

MYK

[lifer]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

They are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or allow?

(haha. nicely done)

allow .

[arsenal]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

They are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or allow?

That's a flag on the user settings. Easily removed.

But it is still funny.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Burninator

What part of Vista was not functioning on realease?

XP was hit or miss, just like Vista is. Some people, like yourself had no problem with the transition, others had a terrible time.

At work, we installed Vista on my boss's laptop at his request so he could test it. After less than a week, he requested we restore him back to XP. He complained that all his applications were running noticably slower. Installing Adobe Reader took over 20 minutes. Photoshop took even longer to install, before eventually returning an error (the "Shared Components" installed properly but the application itself did not).

I installed Vista on my home computer shortly after launch and ran it for abour four months until I replaced a few hardware components and Windows deactivated itself. To reactivate it, I had to call Microsoft, but upon dialing their 800 number, I discovered that they only operate during normal business hours M-F. Since this was on a Saturday, and I didn't want to go the rest of the weekend without a working computer, I re-installed XP. After reverting to the older OS, I discovered that there wasn't a single feature -- NOT ONE THING -- that I missed about Vista. Even if driver and application support on Vista was as good as it is on XP (and it's not by a long shot), there's still no compelling reason at all to upgrade at this point, apart from the irrational desire to be running the "latest and greatest".

[Burninator]

I can't say I had the same trouble installing Vista on my dads laptop. Went swimmingly. In fact I would say it went faster than installing XP on my older, faster, computer. But (hopefully) this weekend I will be installing a fresh copy of Vista on a brand new computer. That will be the litmus test for me.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Burninator

I can't say I had the same trouble installing Vista on my dads laptop. Went swimmingly. In fact I would say it went faster than installing XP on my older, faster, computer. But (hopefully) this weekend I will be installing a fresh copy of Vista on a brand new computer. That will be the litmus test for me.

Oh, don't get me wrong...the actual process of installing Vista is painless and very fast. That's one thing Microsoft did very well...the Vista installer is by far the best out of any version of Windows. Unfortunately, it's everything that happens after Vista is installed that is painful.

[TheDragon]

I've been running Vista for a little over 8 months (bought a new system right after they launched Vista, and this was before companies started offering XP again,) and it hasn't caused me a hickup of trouble. All my Drivers install and work just fine. The only issue I had was with some nVidia drivers hijacking something that prevented my computer from coming out of Hibernation Mode without having to Hardboot it. That was a simple fix, though.

[Juventus3]

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

How much is Leopard going to cost?

$129 for single license, 199 for family pack.

I know, its insanely cheap.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Oh, don't get me wrong...the actual process of installing Vista is painless and very fast. That's one thing Microsoft did very well...the Vista installer is by far the best out of any version of Windows. Unfortunately, it's everything that happens after Vista is installed that is painful.

Apart from driver issues which are remedied by going to the part manu website and downloading vista drivers, what happens "after" the install?

I am curious, I have my own home premium vista, my brothers home premium vista and a home basic vista that i quasi support and have no issues at all except some driver issues after doing fresh installs since none of the computers were built for Vista but rather XP.

MYK

[arsenal]

I have vista installed on my 3 yr old laptop.
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 w/ HT, 100 gb hd (replace this year from mem express),
ATI Radeon 9700 Mobility, 1 gig ram.
I get the ultimate version of Vista (so aero interface), the only driver that wont install on my machine out of the box is my 56K modem.. (seriously.. does anyone use those things anymore?). I have even install some periphials that are not supported under vista (from the vendor), on vista.

Things do run a little slower, but I attribute that to my machine being old, and not developed for vista.

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Exactly Burninator. It's the same every time and the naysayers have no factual reasoning behind their belief it sucks. Mainly just because it is Microsoft. Question, if it was free, would it suck then?

If I were to put aside subjective things like OS look and feel (which I love, BTW), the OS has extremely poor stability in comparison to it's predecessor particularly if you stress it. That is a big problem. Here are some observations I made, in no particular order, from upgrading to Vista day one until about 2 weeks ago when I finally removed it and moved back to XP:

1) Vista does not overclock as well as XP. Consistently across the board people are achieving lower overclocks with the same hardware configuration from Vista as they were with XP.

2) Vista does not support hardware sound <-- big problem for people that purchased high end sound cards. At least Creative is providing Alchemy for free to bypass this problem, but it's a pain to have to run a separate middleware to get something working that was working before. You have a Turtle Beach or E-MU? Well MS says "Screw you, you now have onboard sound like everyone else!". This isn't a defect, but a design decision, it's supposed to provide a common interface for developers moving forward to develop for sound hardware. They could have provided both so existing consumers don't get screwed.

3) Vista has terrible driver support from the video card manufacturers (nVidia and ATI/AMD). Lower frame rates across the board in the order of 10-15 FPS (although the new nVidia beta driver out right now did a really good job with pulling it within low single digits at least for single GPU configuration). Broken SLI implementation (extremely low framerates in SLI when compared to XP). Ironic how my $1500 DirectX 10 graphics cards don't work properly with the only OS that supports DX10.

4) For those unlucky (such as myself) constant crashing due to the "nVidia driver has stopped responding and successfully recovered" issue that is known to be tied in with the memory management implementation in Vista and how it plays with the nVidia driver - a synchronization issue. I've managed to get a relatively more stable configuration by running the RAM at "Link & Sync" which effectively halves the clock rate of the RAM, though it still crashes in occassion.

5) Dreamscene crashes regularly with fatal error. On that note, let me talk a little on "Vista Ultimate Extras". Pretty pitiful when you're paying 66% more than the next best consumer version at Premium ($500 vs. $300) and the only "extra" since launch is a broken program that allows animated backgrounds. It's like upgrading to the LE model and all it comes with is an extra cup holder which spills your drink sometimes. OK, OK, I'm exaggerating here, you do get multilingual support (which was the selling feature for me) and a bunch of other features such as bit locker which isn't offered in the junior versions.

As you can see, not all those issues are completely the fault of MS and Vista (i.e. driver instability), but the OS vendor should have adequately worked with the hardware vendors to provide decent working solutions when launching their product. Particularly when they are using DirectX 10 to push their new OS and not having proper DX10 solutions available.

Oh, and if it was free, I'd still roll back to XP and be upset that I wasted a DVD to burn it out. IMO it's not ready for prime time. The Vista experiment is over for me at least until SP1, which probably should actually be the first retail release. The only crappy thing is losing DirectX 10. Oh well, they'll get it right eventually, I just wish they didn't rush the release and screw the early adopters.

[McG]

I can't debate any of the items that people have posted on this page...the problem is the driver set that m$ has. it just hasn't happened as fast as people would like. that's really crazy to me, and shoddy on the part of hardware manufacturers, especially since the betas were coming fast and furious for a long time. xp had the same driver issues, but i suspect that since there were less computers, less users, and less hardware it wasn't that big a deal. now? how many pieces of hardware plug into your computer?

regarding the offer of xp, i don't see what the big deal is. xp will still lose its support at some point, new hardware won't get drivers, and people will complain that m$ didn't support xp. of course, by then windows vienna will be out...and people will wax poetic about vista.

i ran vista in my office from beta 2 onwards and i have no complaints. in fact, office 12 beta 2 was more buggy than vista beta 2.

as far as apple goes, will this be the big event that finally takes the apple O/S to double digits in the market place? not until the apple o/s debundles from apple PCs i don't think.

i actually feel kinda sorry for m$. people yell and complain about what microsoft doesn't do...ie the 360 or vista vs xp. so they extend the warranty and give the consumer choices. what happens? they get lambasted for doing the right thing.

most companies wait until the first SP anyways; and that is coming.

but i hear that windows vienna is looking great!