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Night of the Living Vista | |
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| Time: 15:27 EST/20:27 GMT | News Source: eWeek | Posted By: Andre Da Costa | ||
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Vista has turned into the desktop operating system no one wants, and even Microsoft is beginning to get it. Today, I think of Vista as the zombie operating system. It stumbles around, and from a distance you might think it's alive, but close up it's the walking dead. The first sign that Vista was in real trouble was when major vendors started to offer XP again on new machines. In February, Microsoft insisted it had already sold more than 20 million copies of Windows Vista. Oh yeah, like there were actually 20 million copies of Vista already out there and running. Pull the other leg, it's got bells on. | ||
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| #1 By 32313 (208.131.186.18) at 9/28/2007 3:52:32 PM |
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What this Linux Freak fails to understand is that Microsoft offering both XP and Vista is a win-win for the Company either way. Its not Linux thats getting onto those OEM machines, its "Windows". Downgrade rights is not something Microsoft started doing this year, the Company has long offered this as an option through its various licensing programs such as SA/EA for a good while now. Also, the fact that Office 2007 and older releases of Office have always supported old and new releases of Windows shows that Company is still supportive of the product. Also, Windows XP's life cycle policy does not end until around 2009 so why not get the most of it while you can while preparing to move to Vista when you are truly ready?
Office XP for instance supported Windows XP in addition to 98, 98 SE, NT 4, ME and 2000. The point is, its Microsoft software, not Linux and the demand is there for it. We must also look at the state of Windows, users are more comfortable with XP because its been around for such a long time with a stable base compared to say 9x which lacked stability and 2000 which lacked the compatibility. Windows Vista was just released world wide 10 months ago, could we stop predicting its demise already? Mac OS X took seven years to reach a level of some recognition or stability. Linux after 16 years still does not have the mass appeal. So if anybody is suffering from some Zombie issues its the Linux's and Unix's. Windows is on target to hit 1 billion by next year, how can 20 million Macs and 1 percent Open Source loser base compete against that? Vaughn needs to stop spewing his wishful thoughts and just accept the reality that is Microsoft, Windows and Office. This post was edited by awandre on Friday, September 28, 2007 at 15:54. |
| #2 By 29967 (72.221.79.220) at 9/28/2007 4:01:34 PM |
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Same material, different author..... these vista haters need new arguments. This post was edited by ispamforfood on Friday, September 28, 2007 at 16:02. |
| #3 By 25030 (12.159.165.115) at 9/28/2007 4:35:11 PM |
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I just don't get all the Vista negativity. Whoever started the campaign sure did a good job, since some senior folks at my company would rather wait to deploy vista, and pay hundreds of additional $$$ in whole disk encryption software rather than move to Vista as the upgrade cycle warrants and simply have the cost of the OS.
Then again, most of the negativity around Vista centers around 2 things: driver support and application support. Both are not MSFT's fault, but rather the fault of the hadware and software vendors. The hardware vendors have some excuse, and they have made great strides such that every piece of hardware with the exception of my 9 year old Microtek SlimScan C6 scanner has Vista drivers available, installed, and working quite well...well except for dual monitor support on the nVidia GeForce G0 6850 graphics in my Dell laptop. The software vendors have just been lazy. They've been lazy for years. Writing code that needlessly requires administrative rights. Finally, those of us in the security field finally had our voices heard, and MSFT was the one who listened and is enforcing least-user-privilege in Vista. It's the software developers who are the fly in the ointment. Vista lives, and will grow stronger over the years. It's introduced a fundamental change to how how software runs (well, it's a change for the Windows world, anyway) and it's effects will have beenefits far beyond its own life. |
| #4 By 32313 (208.131.186.18) at 9/28/2007 5:00:38 PM |
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I have had little problems with Vista x86 since its release in January. Its Vista x64 that is the problem in the device driver support category. BVRP Mobile Phone Tools for instance is buggy and does not work right on Vista x64 on the other side it runs flawlessly on x86. The developers are still dragging their feet when it comes to support of that platform. OEM's are still at fault for giving users the wrong impression with the types of machines they are selling pre-loaded with the new OS.
For instance, I am surprised Dell is offering Inspiron 1501's and other models with 512 MBs of RAM, thats just horrible. When someone buys that, they wonder why Vista is crappy on it. We all know Vista loves RAM, so configure a "2007" system appropriately with a minimum of 1 GB. When XP was released in 2001, reviewers back then were recommending users go with at least 512 MBs of RAM. Thats a 5 year gap, I would have at last expected all OEMs to be on a minimum 1 GB with the majority of mid range systems pre-loaded with 2GBs of RAM. |
| #5 By 23275 (172.16.10.31) at 9/28/2007 5:46:07 PM |
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All... there is money in bashing Windows Vista - people are being paid advertising dollars to write about its faults and slow its adoption.
Many people hate it - right up until they use it on a well prepared machine.... - then they fall in love with it and never look back. Show them how to search on it - show them how to scale how documents and pictures look... so they can look "inside" folders and documents without having to open a thing - show them how Flip 3D can be used to rapidly find and move to an open application - Show them these few simple things and they are hooked - On Vista! Next, using the "Snipping Tool" - snip a part of a web page - show them how the new office allows them to format that image on the fly and create a really easy, but killer looking document and that is it - the real value will be immediately evident! Nothing more than this is needed for any user of XP to regret how XP feels when they have to go back to it and Office 2003, or earlier. These few little examples stomp the life out of all else. |
| #6 By 1896 (216.189.183.117) at 9/28/2007 6:06:17 PM |
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Money is always everywere guys; 99% of the companies in business spend money in more or less "covert" advertising.
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| #7 By 7754 (206.169.247.2) at 9/28/2007 6:36:37 PM |
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Look at the author. That says everything. Vaughan-Nichols is ridiculous.
In the meantime, I'm having a blast with Windows Server 2008 RC0. Windows Server Virtualization absolutely rocks. The performance of 2008 in general is just stunning (I'm seeing network performance that is off the charts), and this is on a virtualized host. I'm very, very, very impressed. |
| #8 By 37047 (74.101.157.125) at 9/28/2007 7:15:24 PM |
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#5: Many people hate it - right up until they use it on a well prepared machine....
There's the kicker. How many people buy a machine like awandre described, which is horribly underpowered for Vista? That is simply asking for a bad review. I can easily see someone buying a 1 or 1 GHz P4 with 512 MB of RAM, and a low to medium end video card, and then complain about what a horrible pig Vista is, how slow it is, etc. They would definitely NOT have a positive user experience. They would then downgrade that system to XP, which would work wonderfully on a system like that, and then comment about how bad Vista is, and how great XP is in comparison. If they have some newer hardware with poor driver support, that will leave a bad taste too. People frequently comment about how XP was when it was released, with comparisons to how Vista is now. However, the comparisons are not completely valid, because expectations were different when it was released, the OS it was compared to was dramatically worse in key ways, such as the instabilities of the 9x line, the app compatibility issues, especially with games, in Windows 2000, etc. Also, it was nice that the system I ran Windows 2000 on was easily upgraded to XP. Neither the video card or the CPU was particularly high end when I bought it, though the Video card and RAM were upgraded over time. Vista often requires people to go and purchase a new system, because anything more than a year or so old is too underpowered to run it. Also, Windows ME was also in the list of OSes XP was being compared to. Remember Windows ME? The so called pinnacle of the 9x line? The best OS yet at the time? How many critics said to not bother with WinME, and downgrade to 98 Second Edition, which was a big improvement over 98 original AND WinME? And in hindsight, they were right. WinME was a horrible mess that should never have been released to the public. The predecessor was actually a better OS, even though WinME had some interesting new bells and whistles. I even went out and got each one within days of their release, due to the awesomeness of the upgrades. Even back when XP was new, it was quite well priced, even for Pro. All this makes me wonder if this is going to be the NT line equivalent of WinME. Everyone raved about that, until in hindsight everyone started to agree that it was a piece of crap. By then, Windows 2000 and WinXP had replaced it, and the IT world was happy once again. |
| #9 By 37047 (74.101.157.125) at 9/28/2007 7:15:47 PM |
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Another thing that annoys some who have been in the IT field for a lot of years is all the really cool features that were supposed to be in Vista that got dropped one by one. I was really stoked about the new database based file system. That got dropped. Same with several other features. By the time Vista's feature set was stabilized, the really cool stuff was all gone. That put a major dampener on my interest in the new OS. Then it was released, and I saw how much the higher end (read more useful and feature complete) versions were, and what hardware was required to get the full benefit from it, and all the driver problems people were having, especially with video cards from both major vendors, that was kind of the final nail in the coffin.
All that having been said, I will likely end up using it when I purchase a new system next year, as whatever I buy will likely be high end enough to run it well, as I tend to purchase the most powerful computer I can at the time, or close to it, so that it will have a real world usability life of more than 15 minutes. Now, if only someone could convince Steve Jobs to release OS X on general Intel / AMD hardware, their OS marketshare numbers would be much higher. But that is not likely with Apple, which is really a hardware company at heart. So, probably a big honkin' desktop system running Vista, and a Macbook Pro running OS X. The best of both worlds, giving me the maximum benefit that both platforms can offer, and Linux running on a second partition on the desktop. A triple threat environment. I think I am going to stop for now, before Latch comes along and starts to criticize my message length. :-) |
| #10 By 12071 (124.171.8.155) at 9/28/2007 7:22:25 PM |
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#3 "Then again, most of the negativity around Vista centers around 2 things: driver support and application support. Both are not MSFT's fault, but rather the fault of the hadware and software vendors. "
I remember the good old days when those were the exact same arguments thrown around by the Microsoft zealots, fanboys and their kool-aid drinking cousins. Back then all of those reasons were 100% valid, and it WAS Linux's fault... but I guess when the same thing happens to a Microsoft OS the natural thing to do is start being a hypocrite! There's a reason why there is so much negative publicity surrounding Vista. Although lketchum is right to a degree, those advertising dollars sure are nice, there's a lot more to this then is immediately obvious. Outside of the Microsoft zealots, fanboys and their kool-aid drinking cousins (many of whom frequent this site) there isn't a lot of love for Vista for a whole lot of different reasons starting with the unbelievably slow performance of the OS and Explorer. The biggest regret I have is choosing to upgrade my XP installation to Vista. If there was a "downgrade" button I would have hit it by now. It drives me absolutely insane watching that stupid green progress bar in explorer doing god knows bloody what whilst I'm trying to do something really complex, like open up a large rar archive, or copy a file from one HDD to another. All those things where XP didn't get in the way with god knows what. The overall performance of the OS is a joke in itself and what makes brilliant is that Vista has rated my pc a 4.2 yet it's performing like a 1.2. So perhaps rather than drinking the kool-aid, stop and think about why so many people are having issues with Vista - did you have you blinkers on when everyone was complaining about ME too? |
| #11 By 1896 (216.189.183.117) at 9/28/2007 7:48:44 PM |
| #9: Very true; the Longhorn 4XXX builds truly represented what Vista should have been. |
| #12 By 11888 (67.71.155.61) at 9/28/2007 8:24:08 PM |
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I still haven't really tried the OS but it's getting to the point now that friends are upgrading to it and coming to me for help. Unfortunately I have nothing to offer. Three complaints so far this week are (1) I don't know where to save my files where I did in XP (2) the My Docs folder claims it's read-only and (3) My thumb drive doesn't work anymore.
One had asked Dell to send the XP install discs with her new notebook and by the sounds of it she's going back to XP soon. I really should pick up a copy to see what everyone is talking about but I'm not convinced it's worth the $$ as a secondary OS. |
| #13 By 32313 (208.131.186.18) at 9/28/2007 8:51:49 PM |
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Whats really missing from Longhorn 4xxx that makes Vista a terrible OS? PC Syncing? Domain for Homes, WinFS, a memory leaking tile based Sidebar? People, get real, Vista is innovative, we have Instant Search integrated into the Start Menu, built in ad-hoc Collaboration tools, and a way more secure operating system. Not to mention, we have the rich visuals of AERO and better organization tools such as file tagging including numerous built in applications that make the experience on this release of Windows a great one.
Vista is being negatively portrayed because of the cheapness of the many PC OEMs (including the brand names like DELL and HP). Windows Vista requires a minimum of 1 GB of RAM to run properly. But if you are running Vista on 512 MBs of RAM you are gonna be frustrated and blame the OS for acting slow and groggy. Vaughan-Nichols fails to realize how most IT departments in most Company's operate, they don't upgrade on the whim of a new release of an operating system. Especially if that Company has developed in house (run the business) applications that need thorough testing. A Company I worked didn't move to Windows 2000 Professional on the desktop until about Summer of 2003 more than 2 years after its initial release, Vista has been on the marker for just 10 months. This is how most Company's work, they upgrade on their own terms, not Microsoft's or anybody else's. Mr. Nichols is nothing but under cover hypocrite working for Company's such as Novell and Redhat. He is always praising Novell's SLED and Redhat operating systems. I was surprised when he was reviewing and recommending Redhats distribution of Linux and how he uses it regularly, when you can only acquire a Redhat Linux operating with a certain amount of licenses that actually rivals the price of Windows on the client side. chris_kabuki, the reason why your system is so slow after upgrading from XP to Vista, is simply because you upgraded from XP to Vista. Vista is probably indexing different parts of the OS. I would recommend other task like cleaning out your temp directing and running a full defrag through the command line. OS X users also experience this after upgrading to Tiger. This post was edited by awandre on Friday, September 28, 2007 at 20:59. |
| #14 By 15406 (99.224.112.94) at 9/28/2007 8:58:33 PM |
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Poor Vista, the red-headed step-child. Look at the bright side; it has nowhere to go but up!
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| #15 By 32313 (208.131.186.18) at 9/28/2007 9:17:00 PM |
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MrRoper, if your friends are running standard based Windows applications, they should adjust just fine to Vista, I think your comment is just over rated. Word, and many other apps, save in the same locations they would normally do in XP. The dropping of the 'My' prefix from the common content locations is not going turn anyone into an idiot.
My Documents - Documents Network Places - Network My Music - Music My Pictures - Pictures My Computer - Computer Anybody with basic common sense should be able to figure that out, especially since there are pictorial representations on the Start menu that represent these locations. As for the thumb drive, if its flashed based, it should work just like any normal Flash does, unless its not USB based. If Documents is read-only, right click it, click Properties and uncheck the Read Only option under Attributes, although it set to Read Only in XP by default. |
| #16 By 11888 (67.71.155.61) at 9/28/2007 10:37:41 PM |
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I can't believe my comment was overrated! I didn't even know it was being judged!
I can assure you that the individual with the saving problem has more than basic common sense. She's at a loss. Her flash-based Lexar thumb drive alerts her to visit the Lexar web site to get support for this drive (or so she reports). She had no problem in XP with the same device. Is part of the problem here that people are too quick to start calling people names when they are having genuine problems? Look at awandre, all I did was report that an individual was reporting her problems to me and he turns around and insults her implying she lacks "basic common sense." Too many individuals on this forum don't appreciate the layer of abstraction between the majority of users and their computers. In her case her logic works like this (A) In Windows XP my thumb drive worked and I had no problems saving my files (B) In Windows Vista my thumb drive does not work and I don't know where to save my files (C) Therefore Windows Vista has complicated my work. |
| #17 By 12071 (203.185.215.144) at 9/28/2007 10:55:05 PM |
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#13 "is simply because you upgraded from XP to Vista."
But that was one of the advertised features - being able to upgrade smoothly from XP! It did NOT say you *can* upgrade from XP but then you'll be left with an OS that runs so poorly you wish you hadn't! My pc isn't an oem built one - unlike people on this site, who interestingly enough call themselves power users (hah!), I've never bought any of my pc's from an oem and don't plan to anytime in the near nor distant future. It's got 2GB of Corsair XMS 3200 memory so memory isn't the issue. All my hdd's (just over 2TB's) have been defragged so that's not the solution either. I've gone through and ensures that no unnecessary services are running at any point in time... and yet the OS still runs like sh*t. The only thing I haven't done is built a brand new pc - but I'll be damned if I'm going to do that JUST to get Vista running to a point where I don't have to get frustrated with it's completely unresponsive UI and Explorer. #16 "Is part of the problem here that people are too quick to start calling people names when they are having genuine problems?" No, the problem is that you dared to criticize anything Microsoft - in this case their baby Vista. You can rest assured anytime you criticize anything Microsoft, regardless of how valid the criticism may be, you'll have the likes of parkkker, lketchum, awandre, mooresa etc jumping down your throat as if you had just killed their newborn. This post was edited by chris_kabuki on Friday, September 28, 2007 at 22:55. |
| #18 By 32313 (208.131.186.18) at 9/28/2007 11:03:01 PM |
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So what was so difficult about updating the driver so it could work under Vista Mr. Roper? You make it sound like you had to commit murder. Which one would you prefer, getting an update from the manufacturer to get the device working under Vista or not having a working device under Linux or compile your own device driver.
My point is, people have it too easy on Windows and its your darn job if you are working in IT support situation to work on the problem for the end user, so stop acting like you are not being paid. Geez, we talk like Linux is the greatest when its worse flaw is ease of use. When Windows has a basic compatibility issue we act like its the end of the world. You can't have it all people! And she is an idiot if she can't tell the difference between My Documents and Documents. Even my mother knows that and she doesn't use or own a computer. If I were her, I would go back to pen and paper and a filing cabinet, there is just no hope for her at all. Let her be her own operating system. |
| #19 By 17996 (66.235.42.86) at 9/28/2007 11:27:00 PM |
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#18 re: Linux: exactly. I always find it funny when I read an article or postings about how people are having trouble moving to Vista: be it with hardware, software (retail or line-of-business), ease of use, etc. And then the article goes on to suggest that this would lead to people moving to Linux instead of Vista.
Newsflash: if you think moving from one version of Windows to another is hard, switching to a completely different OS would be a nightmare. |
| #20 By 32313 (208.131.186.18) at 9/28/2007 11:28:20 PM |
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chris_kabuki, I think you are telling pure lies. If you are running Vista on specs like that, it has to be running great unless the processor is a 133 Pentium! Maybe its your brain thats thinking its slow when its actually fast. Have you applied the recent performance updates? OEM or Home Brew, it doesn't matter, the point is Vista should run just fine on any modern machine. I have Vista Ultimate running like a champ on my Dell 8300 Dimension I purchased in March 2004. P4 3.2 GHz, 2 2.6 GBs of RAM, nVidia Geforce FX 5200 128 MB AGP. Explorers such as Control Panel, Documents (I have over 1200 files), over 7,000 images in my Picture library, more than 8 GBs of music load instantly and Vista is running on this machine like I bought it yesterday. I don't have to count a thing to wait on Explorers to open before I see my files load, instantly I see my pictures when I open Photo Gallery. I suspect it could be driver issue why your system is slow.
I did an upgrade from XP Home to Vista Business on my brothers Dell Inspiron which originally shipped with 512 MBs of RAM and it was slow, I bought a 1 GB stick of RAM for him and the system has been absolutely fast ever since. As for my defense of Vista and Windows, go over to OSNews or Slashdot and say something negative about Open Source or Linux and get ready for the backlash. Here I am interested in defending the truth instead of promoting the propaganda of people like Nichols and Stallman who live with envy and covetousness in their harts and mind over a Company they wished they worked for and who's products they wished they worked on. People like Nichols, Stallman and Torvalds are still in awe after there efforts to bad name Microsoft and Windows that consumers are still willing to go out and spend good money on a product over a free one. Get over it! |
| #21 By 23275 (71.12.191.230) at 9/29/2007 12:53:23 AM |
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Yesterday, two of my guys built five Vista Ultimate laptops, one media centric Ultimate PC and an R2 server - all part of a small technical refresh for a customer. They integrated a ton of other parts - chats, cable management, projector, etc... just a hump busting effort - like they do each day.
Each was hand built from component parts and tonight, I tested each of them. <Yes, we test each system and bench them for days before hand delivering them to customers>. BTW... the server felt just amazing and tested just as well. While I love our laptops and they are very fast and look it - the workstations are still my favorites. This one will drive an HD DLP Front projector to a 110" DLP compatible screen in a conference room. It has a small 1 1/4" x 2 1/2" remote that is 1/8" thick. It has, among other buttons, a power button. One of the tests is simple - the machine must "Sleep" and "Wake" fully in under two seconds in either direction. It must act like an appliance. If it fails we have to start over, or pitch the whole works. Now, with Vista, this is not just possible, but easy to enable consistently. No other x86/x64 computer can do this aside from some MACs, and they aren't as consistent by any means - as when connected to powered devices via USB, or Firewire [I know, I've worked it]. Besides, NONE OF US CAN BUILD A MAC! Apple will not let us. I have to share that I remain 100% and utterly baffled by the people that say that they can't get Vista to run well.... It just smokes my bags. I have to back this up with something... so it may as well be at my own expense... I am a really patient man with people and important things, but when it comes to the performance of anything with my name on it, I am an unforgiving, QUAD-AAAA freak of it better be perfect nature. Every wire had better be perfect - every screw had better be exactly aligned [the crosses at screw heads have to all be the same - all facing exactly the same way]. The paint had better shine. If the mouse and shell do not snap, I'll pitch the box, and the customizations to standard had better be spot on. Not one fault is tolerated and good enough is never good enough - we/I can always do better. If there is a hotter proc, or higher rated card, we had better be using it. In other words, when it comes to all that little nit-picky stuff, there is no room for error or excuses. While I never shout, that look I will display is a heck of a lot worse, and in my shop, we're tight. Tight as ticks and closer than many families. Now, I am sharing this to admit something of a fault and while we are all able to laugh about it, it is real - we and I put the "F" in fanatic when it comes to speed and quality. So, if Vista was a dog in any way - even a tiny, little itty bitty small way, I'd be the most vocal critic it had. I'd trounce it every chance I had in every effort to get MS to fix it, or ship something new. I am so serious about this performance and reliability thing, that if we ever have a problem and for whatever reason it isn't solved nearly immediately, I dump the offending rig and build a new one at my own expense for the customer. As close as a man may get to making something that is perfect is our goal. The fact is, that Vista is amazing and it can be made to run perfectly - flawlessly and I just do not know what forces of darkness and evil are taking over whatever many of you guys are using. I try and see in these posts what may be going down for people and try and think through the why of it. I've tried to replicate the terrible performance I believe people are actually seeing. It has to be something... some thing... I dunno. I'd like someone to send me one of these faulty rigs just once so I could see it and perhaps fix it. |
| #22 By 23275 (71.12.191.230) at 9/29/2007 9:49:04 AM |
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There has to be something to what many of you are saying... has to be... I mean, many of you have been building, or supporting PC's for decades... WinME is an easy target and I just re-read some posts here relevant to that and I was reminded of my own experiences with ME and one in particular...
One of my guys is an amazing engineer. He's as smart as they come, but he is easily distracted. He does his best work when presented with really tough challenges.... unless it comes to his own rigs... Many years ago he was running W2K, but really wanted the media and device driver support back that he had once had under Win98SE. At the time, his only choice was WinME. Now, he had mucked about with his rig for about a week and had a lot of problems. His wife, an amazingly supportive woman, was showing signs of some frustration with the whole matter. I really liked this guy and his wife - just great people. Years later they honored us, by requesting that we serve as their son's god parents. We both still remember that rig, and WinME. I had him drop it off after work one Friday night all those years ago, and he and his wife headed out for some dinner - one of those rarer dates hard working married couples get to take. I settled down with a screw driver and a couple of pots of coffee and WinME's install disk. I took the rig down to metal and rebuilt it physically and then logically. It took all night as he had everything from a RAID controller to a tuner card in it. I finished it up at about 6 AM - having installed every bit of software he wanted and moving his files and mail back over from a share on my network. That machine ran so well - so flawlessly, he was very reluctant to upgrade it when XP Pro came out. He loved it. He and his wife came over about 9 the next morning and the machine ran perfectly until we built him a new machine. His wife used the WinME machine for years - until it was retired at EOL. It was flawless and I remember him sharing that his wife did not like XP when it came out because it was not as stable - not as stable as WinME?!?!? Then it hit me. It could easily be that just as with ME, where there was a very specific order of how a build needed to be done - base mode video driver, reboot, enchanced mode video driver, reboot, DirectX, reboot, MB drivers, reboot, sound card driver, reboot, tuner card driver and SW, reboot... I had not placed any cards in the machine except video, until the machine was ready for the next step. Then I thought about how carefully we build things and how just as carefully we select and test parts and combinations and how we test and build based upon the best of them. Our own great experiences could easily be as it always has been - about tested and proven combinations of components and procedures, and because we are so used to it all it just seems as though it should be that way for all. I mean, the same is true of all the software we use and offer. If it is a pig, we find something else. If it is great, we use it and sell it. So perhaps it is that we no longer have the right perspective about it. This means we have to explore some different and existing configurations if we are to understand what some of you are seeing. |
| #23 By 65179 (221.128.181.79) at 9/29/2007 10:18:35 AM |
| Bashing Windows = everyday spice and more visits to the article. I feel pity on the author...seems very ignorant and prejudiced. But I'm beginning to feel really worried for MS (since I'm an MS fanboy), Windows Vista is NOT how the media is portraying it. Eventually, it'll be the media that'll be responsible for the OS's downfall, if it happens. If it's really so bad, it will automatically fail, not that I feel it's IS bad at all. But now that there is enough info on what's in the OS, why doesn't the media leave it alone to stand on its technical merits and stop bashing it so badly? I've never seen the media criticize any MS product SOO badly for that matter. Therein lies the truth...that the media is only sensationalizing things. |
| #24 By 37047 (74.101.157.125) at 9/29/2007 11:09:15 AM |
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#21, 22: If there is a hotter proc, or higher rated card, we had better be using it.
This and other comments indicate the primary reason you are not seeing the problems others are. And you pretty much nailed it. You are using top of the line parts, and doing base OS installs and installing each driver by hand. Many of us here might do the same thing, and not see any problems. The problem many others have may be related to this. A lot of OEMs sell systems pre-installed, and they use a pre-built recovery disk to do the install. Install disk, click the Go button, so to speak, and it wipes the hard drive, and installs whatever image is on the disk, and hopefully none of the parts on the system have had a slight upgrade, and make the drivers on the system slightly inappropriate. And many of these OEMs don't even ship with a real OS disk, just this recovery crap. So, the only option many people have is to reimage from this recovery disk, which wipes all their files on the OS drive, and start the nightmare again. Since Microsoft started to push this scheme on the OEMs, and they started to use this method of OS distribution, these sorts of problems are bound to become more prevalent, as the fix is not as simple as it used to be. I remember when I could buy a PC, and it would ship with a standard OS version. I could install or repair from this, and tell it to install upgraded drivers from a disk or separate disk partition, rather than using the standard one that shipped with Windows. Now, you install the image, reboot into the configured OS, and THEN start the driver upgrade process, and hope there are not installer or other issues. I personally do not believe that this decision by Microsoft to give people only recovery disks, and not real install disks, is a leading cause of problems, and at least makes fixing problems more problematic. |
| #25 By 37047 (74.101.157.125) at 9/29/2007 11:35:20 AM |
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#16: Too many individuals on this forum don't appreciate the layer of abstraction between the majority of users and their computers. In her case her logic works like this (A) In Windows XP my thumb drive worked and I had no problems saving my files (B) In Windows Vista my thumb drive does not work and I don't know where to save my files (C) Therefore Windows Vista has complicated my work.
This is very true. Many here are IT pros, who assemble and install their own systems, and have no appreciation of the difficulties people encounter who buy a system from an OEM such as HP or Dell, and it comes pre-installed however the OEM decided it should be installed, warts and all. Good luck to them if the OEM installed an upgraded network or video driver, and the driver version that shipped with the recovery disk was not the correct version for that hardware rev. As for the insulting nature of people here, Vista is the new born baby of Microsoft, and if you have the gall to insult it, or point out a wart on its nose, the local rabid fanboyz (NotParker, moosea56, awandre, et. al.) will start insulting you, with no other value added to the conversation. I do not include lketchum in this group because even though he can be a pretty rabid supporter of MS, he at least will try to give a rationale to his reasoning. I don't always agree with him, but at least he gives a thoughtful explanation most of the time. The others will simply give you insults. It is best to simply ignore them. If you ignore them, they will eventually go away. #23: See the rest of this post. Reviewers, like many people who buy their systems pre-installed from HP, Dell, etc., get whatever is pre-installed and pre-configured. If that configuration is not optimal, or simply bad, then they will report on what they experience, not on what you or lketchum have experienced. If I were to do a review of a car, and they sent me one that had various problems, I would report on that, even if the majority of the vehicles that came off the assembly line didn't have those problems. Maybe the companies who are providing the OEM loaners for review should be more careful about how they are configured. If the reviewer is putting together his or her own system for review, then any issues they encounter will be included in the review, and that goes back to Microsoft in some cases, as many of these folks are writers, not system integrators. If the installation does not go well, and they are left with a less than optimal installation, or even a perfect installation on a base level system that barely meets Microsoft's minimum system configuration, then a bad review is bound to occur. |
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