Posted by ffextensionguru at 1/30/08 11:12 a.m.

Very creative and apparently effective too.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/30/08 11:40 a.m.

I have a question for you, Mr. Bishop. My brother, a technophile if there ever was one, upgraded my mom's computer from XP to Vista and the thing hasn't worked well since. It turns on and off every twenty minutes and to turn it back on, you don't just click the mouse or move it around or hit Enter, you have to restart. Is that the kind of problem your story refers to? Thanks for a great article and I look forward to your reply.

Posted by citizen at 1/30/08 11:49 a.m.

Vista is an unmitigated disaster. I regret the day I bought it. Next comp will be a Mac.

Posted by J.P. Patches Pal at 1/30/08 11:58 a.m.

I think I will avoid Vista. I have adapted to XP and don't have many problems with it. I thought Bill Gates was supposed to be smart. He was a fellow Patches Pal, after all.

Posted by Will in Seattle at 1/30/08 12:28 p.m.

Hey, you going to the J.P. Patches statue unveiling at 10 am the morning of the Fremont Solstice Parade, J.P. Patches Pal?

Should be fun!

I decided against WinVista when all my fellow techies started telling me horror stories and we had to rollback a couple of Vista installs on computers at work that slowed to half their prior speed.

Upgrades are supposed to be better - not worse.

Posted by cedobie at 1/30/08 12:29 p.m.

its unacceptable. What if Boeing operated like Microsoft?...we'd all die. I'd rather have delays than that.

Posted by fourten1j at 1/30/08 1:16 p.m.

Just think what would have happened if the DOJ broke apart Microsoft into multiple companies in the late 1900's.... it would be faster at product development, be more innovative, and lead the market instead of reacting to it (such as in response to Apple and Google products). A huge corporation makes processes SLOOOOOW and messy/confusing/what's the point products to show for it.

The peak of Microsoft has long passed.

Posted by J.P. Patches Pal at 1/30/08 1:34 p.m.

"The peak of Microsoft has long passed."

You better tell this to their real-estate division. Trees are getting to be a rare sight in SW Redmond due to all the Microsoft construction on new buildings.

Posted by J.P. Patches Pal at 1/30/08 1:37 p.m.

Posted by Will in Seattle at 1/30/08 12:28 p.m.

Hey, you going to the J.P. Patches statue unveiling at 10 am the morning of the Fremont Solstice Parade, J.P. Patches Pal?

Should be fun!
-----------------------------------------

Yes. JP is an icon and still draws huge crowds at his public appearances. Wait-times to meet JP have often been two hours or more when he signs autographs. It's always a special occasion because I know I am at a gathering of longtime Seattle residents.

Posted by ucsdstud at 1/30/08 1:45 p.m.

Vista is an unmitigated disaster. I regret the day I bought it. Next comp will be a Mac.

Although I never cared for Windows, even something older such as Windows 98 or Windows 2000 "worked" as far as I was concerned. As UGLY as their interfaces were, they got the job done, which for most people, was all that was important.

Enter XP, and although the GUI is somewhat "slicker" and more "plasticky" looking, it still did the job.

Vista is a JOKE. GUI-wise, the most attractive of the bunch, but if it DOESN'T WORK, what's the point of making it prettier? It's like befriending a very sexy woman who is merely a tease ... what's the point? It's a freakin' waste o' time.

The Mac OS is CLEARLY light years ahead of Vista. In fact, I'll even go as far as they are NOT even in the same league. Leopard is a MAJOR league player whereas VISTA is a double-A affiliate, if you're a baseball fan.

Product-wise, the ZUNE is a late-bloomer in the MP3 player wars ... about five years too late, just like VISTA!!!

Posted by hoobuba at 1/30/08 1:50 p.m.

I do not work for MS, I do not like some MS policies, but Vista is not that bad as most of the people here complain. Every SW has bugs, learn to live with it. MS is just nice big target to shoot at.
I have new HP laptop with Vista Business and it runs great so far (and I am not nice to it). I have also reinstalled old Dell laptop to replace old cluttered XP to Ubuntu and half of the things have not been working After changes in configuration it cra**ed out and I had to reinstall from scratch without starting any work.
Do not get me started on Apple - hegemony deamon emerging - reminding me of young M$. (how often do you have to update 70MB+ "packake" of iTunes&QuickTime PLAYERs)

Give Vista a chance - it is better than you think.

Good day to everyone.

Posted by Tex 63 at 1/30/08 1:55 p.m.

I'm happy with XP why mess it up with Vista???I never have problems.........

Posted by jkdrummer at 1/30/08 2:00 p.m.

What's wrong with Vista? I've had it for months and it works fine. Again, people hate winners like Gates and find any opportunity to bash his success (look at the year MS had in 2007) to make themselves feel better. Apple? There's a reason Apples are only used by 20% of the market, they crash just as much as a PC. Reminds me of a time when I asked a TV repairman which TV to buy, he said, "It doesn't matter, I've seen every brand made and they all break"

Posted by DowntownTaylor at 1/30/08 2:09 p.m.

I installed Vista Home Premium on my iMac *only* so that I can test my web design and Flash applications on that platform (I normally use a Mac). I know of one thing in particular that Vista is really good at: endless entertainment, if you have the patience. When I boot into Vista from time to time, I chuckle at its inferiority to the Mac OS. Then I reboot back into the Mac side ASAP and wonder why it took me so many years to ditch Windows for Mac.

Posted by cwd_hawk at 1/30/08 2:14 p.m.

Hahahahah,that sign is the funniest thing I have seen all day.

Posted by Sabon at 1/30/08 2:26 p.m.

With an Apple computer it doesn't get in the way of what you are trying to do.

You also don't have install anti-virus software because the operating system is secure. Vista came out and Microsoft not only wants you to over pay for it but then you expect you to buy their anti-virus software. Why not just make it secure so we don't need AV software?

I got tired of all the hassle of XP and switched to a Mac. I've been very happy that I did.

I have friends that are very pro Microsoft (I like them anyway) and they installed Vista as soon as they could get their hands on it.

Their words? They like it because they get to learn a lot by seeing what doesn't work and then figuring out how to make it work right.

I think their nuts. That isn't why I bought a computer.

Posted by Serenity at 1/30/08 2:30 p.m.

I'm generally pretty OS-agnostic - I don't get involved in Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux religious wars - but I do think a new operating system should have significant improvements over the previous versions. Otherwise, it's being released solely to boost the stock price, not to meet an actual consumer or business need. That may be a way to keep Wall Street happy, but you'll find businesses more and more reluctant to purchase upgrades if you continually release new OS's that add no real value.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/30/08 3:52 p.m.

One more thing about Mac OS X is that you can have just about all the features of Vista in about half of the RAM footprint, in fact much less of a system resource footprint overall. I just installed the very newest Mac OS X 10.5 on a friend's laptop that is nearing five years of age. Sure, we upgraded the RAM...to 1GB. And put in a bigger hard drive. And you know what, it works great!

Now, how realistic would it be to run Vista on a 5-year-old PC laptop with only 1GB of RAM and a 1.25GHz CPU? I can already hear knowledgable Windows techs shudder at the very thought.

Take out the bloat, Microsoft, and then you might have something.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/30/08 4:21 p.m.

Vista is a four letter word.
Like the war in Iraq, the one question that can't be answered is "Why?". Why was it released, Why was it written, Why do I need it. Why is it still for sale?

Vista more proof that all the coders in the M$ world can't compile their way out of a paper bag or in this case a bloated operating system of their own making - they can't write better code than XP - what a joke and their laughing all the way to the bank. But not with my money

Posted by unregistered user at 1/30/08 5:55 p.m.

Goodness knows, all operating systems have bugs--to be fair, Leopard (MacOS 10.5) had some compatibility issues with Adobe's CS3--but this is slavish brand loyalty at its worst. The fact is that Microsoft can't even use Vista on some of it's own platforms due to the incompatibility not only with drivers, but some databases and prepackaged business software as well--not to mention the fact that anyone who wanted to use it had to upgrade their machines significantly (I love the comment about RAM footprint--Vista's is like Bigfoot amongst the daisies...) at a HUGE cost, not only to MS, which can afford it, but to politically-correct third party vendors who live on a diet of pentium chips and MS Koolaid. We tried it and it failed miserably. That's okay. I run XP just fine.

...on my Mac :)

Posted by unregistered user at 1/30/08 9:15 p.m.

Even after feeding the Vista Gorilla 4GB of RAM, a Readyboost USB flash drive and a faster dual-core CPU in my latest 'puter, it still is slower than my older XP machine with just 1GB of RAM and a single core CPU. And I don't see any extra benefits except for a dumb blondesque interface designed to titillate rather than provide any qualitative benefits over XP.

So it's back to the future with XP for me.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 1:22 a.m.

Have they signed PC Worlds online petition tp "SAVE windows XP"??? Microsoft wants to stop selling it June 30th
:(

WAH! Wah Wa!

Sabon at 1/30/08 2:26 p.m.
Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, XP & vista ALL work great still & I never tire of playing with them. The Mac looks cute on the outside & works, sort of, but it's what's on the inside that's most interesting
;)

Mr Bishop, this article IS a common trend, except for the big looking sign, in many computer sales & service facilities they often say "it's better wit XP" but the further sales pitch is in memory etc to run Vista they get to install that or uninstall for an extra fee.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 2:52 a.m.

Well I also had to reinstall XP on a notebook which was sold with Vista, the customer did not enjoy thath HIS software product did not work at ALL there, plus after few days, it was so slow that I told him he needs a extra GB of RAM. He chose to go back to XP like he has on other computer too.

The 20-minut reset interval in Vista was for the Vista demo I think, not for a legally bought Vista system.

And yes, Vista is a crap unable to manage itself in 512MB of memory. Ubuntu is more than happy with 256MB with 20 firefox tabs open and still NO SWAP file!

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 3:28 a.m.

I wouldn't touch Vista with a 10 foot pole. XP? Why use a 7 year-old OS when you can have a fresh version of Linux like Mepis?

My girlfriend has a MacBook, 1gb ram, dual 1.8ghz. iTunes keeps crashing because it tries to download album covers or something�it no longer works. I switched her to Songbird, an open-source iTunes-like music player. Good thing Apple acquired NeXT�if it weren't for the X11 environment, Mac OS X would suck!

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 4:57 a.m.

Vista sux in so many ways. A little research on Google and you'll find many things to hate about it other then it's poor performance and compatibility issues.
On the MAC/M$/Linux debate:
Apple does to hardware what M$ does to software, they bork it and make it inaccessible to the EU, they make it cost far more then it should, they restrict what you can and can't do with your own computer. A PC with Linux installed gives me access to both the hardware and software and I can do as I choose. Ubuntu with Compiz also leaves both MAC and M$s pathetic GUIs for dead, dead, dead! There is absolutely no question of that. I have configured one ubuntu desktop to look almost exactly like vista and then another to look almost exactly like MAC only BETTER! LOL'z @ anyone who got a MAC 'cause it looks better.'

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:27 a.m.

i use windows vista and have no problems. i do not do much web design though. i admit that mac computers are better for design, it is so much easier than publisher, but whatever. i like vista, it is good for what i use it for. i am a gamer, and my system is so fast vista doesnt hold it back.. try it before you bash it

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:00 a.m.

Great sign. Points to how MS has really helped Apple's sales as regular consumers think there is only MS or Apple. Check out linux though: www.distrowatch.com and look at the ranking list (right hand side of the page). Never tried Linux? Start at the top and find one you like and download the "live-cd" and boot on your current computer - you won't need to install (unless you want to) to try them out and then reboot back into your regular hard disk drive OS. I've converted lots of PC's and a Mac laptop over to Xubuntu. Lot's of modern OS's to give new life to 10 year old pc's... and they are free.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:22 a.m.

everytime i read an article on vista i read comments all bashing vista. After using it for six months I have to say that I disagree with every post that complains about vista. XP was ok I used (and still do - PCLinuxos - now) Linux for the last three years and since vista I have been using it. I think its interface is nice and so what if its a hog have you seen the demands of games lately, get over it nothing wrong with vista - I actually think its the best OS Micro$oft has put out.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:32 a.m.

I'm amazed at the negativity. Ive used Vista in 2 circumstances. One was an upgrade from XP. That sucked... Mainly because of Driver incompatibility, which more or less forced me to reformat the machine andmove back to XP. Than I used it on a new machine, with vista ready drivers, and I love it. Wouldnt move back to XP no matter what, am going to replace the XP PC with a new vista one.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:46 a.m.

Heh,heh. After helping several people deal with Vista on brand new machines, I've helped them put Linux on them instead. Without exception they are all happy with the results. When your computer useage is primarily web browsing, email, document composition and a bit of entertainment, then Linux works perfectly.

More, they all say that had they known Vista would be so bad, they'd have kept their old machine with XP. The release of Vista appears to me to be the biggest fraud perpetrated on the consumer in a long time. IMHO, Microsoft released Vista only to boost its sagging stock price.

Caveat Emptor

Posted by Gronkdonkey at 1/31/08 6:48 a.m.

Vista is the best marketing program that was ever put in place for Apple. Leopard kicks so much butt it's not even funny. When it's time to upgrade our deskdop (we've already done one of the laptops), we'll be phasing Micro$oft out of our household for good.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:54 a.m.

I should't have to say this.
but you guys know that theres a free, open source alternative to winos and macos....
its called.................

okay you know. get on the boat tardies.

Posted by yaddayadda at 1/31/08 6:59 a.m.

6 months ago, when buying a new laptop, I asked a friend who is in the top third of the food chain at msoft what he thought of vista. His recommendation was to avoid that "train wreck" for at least another year, until they have the majority of the bugs worked out. I'm glad I followed his advice.

Posted by thesmallprint at 1/31/08 7:08 a.m.

Microsoft has made only one truly good bloat-free OS in their entire history: Windows 2000Pro. In fact, it was so good, I think they had to muck up the next one (XP) to keep the upgrade frenzy going. Otherwise, why upgrade? I still have Win2000Pro on an old PC, and I can't remember the last time it crashed, or there were any problems. And I'm talking about 7 years of service. It has literally run for years without a single crash. I've since moved back to the Mac platform for technical reasons. But when it comes to usability and stability (forget the eyecandy), the Win2000Pro OS was right up there with X and Linux. So MS has proven they can build a good OS. So now the question is, are MS's buggy unstable OS's (like Vista) more profitable than a solid OS like Win2000Pro?

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:15 a.m.

all the people who are defending the "Vista" are not giving reasons why the vista "isnt bad"
sorry i wont pay 4337656457$$ so i can have a more colorful interface, especially if im going to sacrifice my ram for it.

give me 1 reason.. just one.. why is the vista better then the XP ? why is the question.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:43 a.m.

Vista's DRM is what I hate most. How DARE they filter all my videos, it is **MY** pc, not theirs. Vista isn't working for my benefit, it's working against my benefit. An operating system should be my slave, not my enemy, and that's what Vista is: my enemy. It does everything it can to screw me over.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:47 a.m.

Just the fact that Will in Seattle doesn't like Vista leads me to believe it is a good product based on his prior posts.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:48 a.m.

XP �� 2K �� Vista �� other windows versions �� ME ������(indestructible brick wall)������ Mac

Linux is like, off to the side somewhere.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:57 a.m.

i can't use vista even if i wanted to. i work with digital audio/midi and no pro audio cards support RT. and the asio drivers for vista have much higher latency than XP. plus, all the garbage that's running in the background (over 500mb) causes glitches when i'm recording cos some background thread takes top priority and leaves my sequencer software without a quick enough timeslice.

btw, i've trimmed down XP to use only 58mb RAM just after booting, and vista takes almost ten times that much (over 500mb) which is a complete joke since XP does everything that vista can do.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:23 a.m.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:43 a.m.
Vista's DRM is what I hate most. How DARE they filter all my videos, it is **MY** pc, not theirs. Vista isn't working for my benefit, it's working against my benefit. An operating system should be my slave, not my enemy, and that's what Vista is: my enemy. It does everything it can to screw me over.

LOL, so true, so true.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:35 a.m.

Weighing in on the MAC vs. Windows vs. Linux debate; you can not run a large business on Macs or Linux (yet). One of the reasons on the MAC side is their propriatary design and the other is their secretiveness. We have machines on the manufacturing floor with all kinds of cards and connections that just do not work (even with virtualization) on anything other then a Windows PC. In the office we have engineering software that is the same. Granted, when we had Unix engineering workstations, they worked like a dream but did not run the other office programs. Linux just does to have a large enough support base from vendors and the OS is too fragmented with flavors.

With the above said, I think that application virtualization will change many of these restrictions. We are currently looking at Thininstall (VMWare) with a wine wrapper for Macs and Linux app deployments. Also RDP connections on VM servers (I am on one now) eliminates the hardware and OS debate.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:37 a.m.

I have used Vista 64 Ult for about 5 months now i bought it OEM for about 120$ and i works fine.... it has not crashed once, i can run all my old games on it just fine and new ones work too... i had to update my copys of cad and solidworks but thats about it and i think its more becouse of the 64bit os then vista. i have no anti-virus software and didn't when i had XP and i never got a virus. if you get viruses stop looking up internet porn... the only thing i dont like about vista is the stupid bubbly interface.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:15 a.m.

ucsdstud: If "Mac OS is CLEARLY light years ahead of Vista" why am I still limited to resizing windows from the lower-right corner? Why is keyboard access still light years behind Windows? And why do they still only sell one-button laptops for an OS with 3-button capability? Because thinking different is more important to Apple than thinking about usability. Mac used to be the easier OS, but when they continually refuse to implement basic user-friendly features, simply because it would make the OS a little more like Windows, that's thinking stupid. Mac OS and Windows both have their flaws - I have one of each. My Mac is old, because I refuse to buy another until they stop failing at these basics. And I won't touch Vista - I'm waiting for a Windows OS with new features, not just a prettier (memory-hogging) interface. As far as I'm concerned, the OS should be minimal, both visually and with resource consumption, so the older Win2K interface is still superior to XP, Vista, or MacOS.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:33 a.m.

"If "Mac OS is CLEARLY light years ahead of Vista" why...is keyboard access still light years behind Windows?"

Because you haven't learned how, that's why. I can run the OS and apps only with the keyboard much like I can in Windows. It's different, but it's there. One of the features behind this is "Full Keyboard Access."

Also, some of the points you made are not "user-friendly features." They are "power user features," like the multi-button mouse. It is known that many casual and new users have difficulty understanding the conceptual difference between the two mouse buttons. Now, that's not me. I'm a power user, multi-button mouse owner, and keyboard shortcut addict. And I can have that on my Mac. On the other hand, my mother finds the Mac simpler because it doesn't distract her with visual noise like all those underlined letters in the menus. You can have it both ways.

As far as its overall usefulness. Mac laptops can be found at this office:
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/people/20040103_Sp_EDL_01-br.html

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:51 a.m.

Pathetic. You know how much 2 gigabytes of DDR-2 Ram costs these days? Slickdeals.net says $27. So you need less than a gas tank in funds to upgrade to make vista run well, boo-hoo. Anyone ive ever met with even half decent skills has gotten vista running great. Its just fashionable to jump on the bandwagon about how much it sucks. Go give it a serious chance and you wont look back.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:52 a.m.

All you whiners complaining about Vista's DRM please cite an example in which Vista's DRM prevented you from doing whatever it is you wanted to do.

Thought so.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 10:52 a.m.

I bought a new computer with MS Vista and have been having problems with my video card (GForce 8800GTX) from day one. The computer company (dell) says it's vista's problem and MS says it's Nvidia's problem. They have both have released patches to fix the problem but neither work.
Never had this problem with XP.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 11:01 a.m.

Vista is for modern hardawre, and on modern hardware it runs better than XP and does more than XP. Have fun bashing it, but just because you installed the upgrade verion on your 4 year old laptop and it didn't work very well, doesn't mean you should go telling everyone it's bad, because you really have no clue. XP was just as bad and buggy on older systems as Vista is today. And by the way, Vista has been patched up pretty good, the hardware vendors have fixed their drivers, and most software is compatible, so the early flood of problems many of you know nothings are parroting no longer exist. As for making the OS "secure" like OSX, the main reason OSX is secure is because it has a tiny user base. Virus writers like to pick on the big dogs. OSX is just as invadeable, just not cared about. But by all means, please spend $2000 on $1200 worth of hardware.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 11:13 a.m.

Yep, I captured this last November.

www.flickr.com/photos/bilikfamily/187323
7466/

It made me crack up as I was driving around the town. (I live in Milford and own OS X machines...).
-- Scott
bilikfamily.com/

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 11:20 a.m.

I don't know why anyone bothers with Vista. Ubuntu linux is WAAAAY better, easy to install, allows access to ntfs partitions, and it's free. I know people think linux is just for geeks, and this is simply not true. I haven't had to use the terminal once. The fact that vista is a pos shouldn't bother anyone when there is free stuff that is just plain better.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 11:32 a.m.

I bet most of you Vista haters have never even used Vista. I upgraded months ago with legal copies and it has run great. Most of you that hate it have only used the RC releases that you got from a torrent site and burned it to DVD in your parents basement. Of course its going to have problems. If you try to load a 8 mo. old OS on a 5 year old computer of course its going to slow down.

Posted by John Gerrr at 1/31/08 11:46 a.m.

Question: I am interested in buying a new Mac cause I relate/want-to-be-like the really cool Mac guy in commercials. Does the speed of a processor affect the operating system performance? Can I upgrade my old Mac? There are PC's available at twice the processing speed and half the price of a MAC? I only have $1200 to spend (I am cool but not rich). What to do?

Posted by keepreadinifithurts at 1/31/08 12:19 p.m.

Vista sucks, simple as that. Yes, you could learn how to use it, but hey, Bill, IF I WANTED A MAC, I WOULD BUY ONE!

I've been into PC's since MS-DOS. Crawl, walk, run.
Fundamentals. May not be fun, but it's important.
Gimmicks? No, at the end of the day, what I need is an internet terminal, a word-processor that lets you print, and an operating system that doesn't take a 15-year degree in advanced rocket theoretics whiz-bang to repair and maintain. It's like Mr. Scott said: The more complex you make the plumbing, the easier it is to plug up the drain. I used to work IT support, and I never want to have anything to do with Vista again. It's a resource hog, a hard drive hog, and system requirements that only benefit your cousin over at the memory chip factory, well, at some point, it gets stupid. If they could attach a 104-key keyboard to a PDA, which I think they can actually do, and you could send email with it, I'd buy one of those instead.
How about Windows XP Hotrod edition? Half the hard drive space, half the processes. Go-fast and the whiz-bang and the bomb-shizzle. You could hack it out yourself, or MS could cut a mass-distribution hack package. They've worked with it long enough, so 'pimp' that OS. MAKE that monitor jump everytime you press a key on the keyboard. Zoom, zoom.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 12:34 p.m.

Interesting that I stumbled upon this the day after I did exactly the same: dumped my 7-day old Vista and bought a new XP Pro.

Vista has just too many bugs and faults to be usable. I had a bug with Control Panel refusing to open at every second restart; it's a bug documented by Microsoft and no solution is provided. In other terms it's official: Vista's Control Panel works half of the time.

The search function in Vista is buggy. Impossible to find a file you are looking for, even in the simplest way. I was looking for a text file in a folder that contains no more than 500 files. No matter what search settings I applied, the file was not found by Vista... but other irrelevant files were.

I have to run a business (not computer-related) and I can't afford to play around with buggy operating systems like that. Windows XP Pro does the job OK (I had been using it for 4 years), so I am installing that on my new PC.

I do not believe in the future of Microsoft. A company that is unable to fix such basic issues after one year will disappear.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 12:43 p.m.

[Side comment: is there any reason that there are no instructions as to whether any of the "code letters" need to be capitalized (as they are in the illustration) or if lower case for all is O.K.?]

Do any of you readers seriously think I would let the power company upgrade my service if it also meant that I had to buy a new stove, dishwasher, refrigerator, hot water heater, furnace, circulators? or electric drill?

Now explain to me why I should have to buy NEW copies of working software such as Quattro Pro, WordPerfect, Q-DOS, Eudora, Zone Alarm, and/or Quicken just to be able to use their functionality with VISTA?

As for "waiting until the bugs are worked out", as a software tester, I can tell you that much software is "put out there" with barely adequate testing. I was pressured once to withdraw my "re-do" order when the software froze if the user tried to "stack" more than 22 print jobs. [Programmer: "who would do that anyway?" -answer: 6 out of 8 users I interviewed]

And, how much of this "bloat" in code size is the result of management's push to have coders use more "reusable code"? (I once found a function that could be coded with 150 - 200 keystrokes that weighed in at 1,500,000 in the "reusable code block".)

I don't believe it has to be so complicated (or convoluted).

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 1:14 p.m.

In this discussion, a lot of people complaining about the symptoms of Vista's disease. But only ONE person even mentioned the name of the disease. And even he didn't seem to think about how the patient got sick.

DRM. Digital Rights Management. Where a bunch of multinational corporations think they own the cultural heritage of mankind, and are going to force you (compute users) to pay through the nose any time you want to look at _anything_ they own the copyright on. Which means everything. You want to copy that file? NO YOU CAN'T!

Microsoft bought into this mindset years ago, when they decided to diversify into owning archives of films, artworks, and so on. Plus their own software utilities like MS Office, where they'd rather you paid every time you wrote a letter, not just when you originally buy the software.

MS have been working towards their 'trusted computing' dream since just after Win98. They've been deliberately breaking everything that's useful for free data manipulation, and replacing it with their 'we own your computer' crap. 'Trusted Computing'... ha! Means 'We trust YOUR computer to work for US!' Not to mention Microsoft's eager cooperation with the NSA to build government-accessible snooping back doors into your computers.

Enjoy your spyware, deliberately crippled Operating System, all you MS paid shills posting "I love my Vista" here.

Links to some other articles on Fista: http://www.liveangst.com/links/ms_vista_vile.txt

TerraHertz

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 1:40 p.m.

I loathed Vista from the first time it booted, it's an indescribably pathetic piece of software. I can't understand what they were thinking when they made that junk, and it took them so long too. It took me two days and five wasted CDs to reinstall XP on my laptop, but it was worth it.

The people that built Microsoft into a successful company have all left and all the smart people are in their own web startups. All that remains are the clueless second tier bandwagon jumpers, cargo cultists and resume stuffers, ensuring the companies inevitable decline.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 1:59 p.m.

I always thought they rushed this "product" to market to quickly, for the sake of the shareholders and to appear they are on the cutting edge (NOT!).

Gates is a crook just like most of the fatcats, and surely works closely with the guberment. There are so many features on their OS to save, archive, catalogue your every stroke that it scares me. Believe me, I have had my door kicked in by the feds (for ridiculous reasons), and they performed a forensic exam of my computers. You would not believe the stuff they retrieved, and it was from the beginning of your first keystroke.

Make sure you get a good cleaner, and unhook all the insidious features (e.g., hibernate, page file, history, indexing, yada yada yada). Any piece of information from the past CAN and WILL be used against you, if you give the guberment the opportunity. VISTA only adds to the invasion of privacy

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 2:20 p.m.

I Have used Vista for a while now, takes a bit to get used to it but its pretty good. I like XP only because I have a very old printer that is not Vista compatable but would use it if it was. I also have a Mac and after you use windows for a while a Mac is for stupid children.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 4:18 p.m.

I use Vista daily at work. And it is Painful if left in its default. You can actually switch to a different interface that looks like win2k3.

Speed aside, the real issue for me is Drivers. Win XP had a similar problem at first, but you could use Win2000 drivers 99% of the time. With Vista, the success rate of using drivers from XP is maybe 25%.

I also work with Macs and with Linux. At home I much prefer those two. I have a PC with XP and it runs just fine.

"If it isn't broken, don't fix it" is a really good policy.

Posted by NASA_Mark at 1/31/08 4:43 p.m.

I've been installing Ubuntu Linux on all my friend's Windows machines, regardless of which Windows they have. Everyone loves it, it is free, and all the software is free. It's easy to use and runs fast, and it is very secure. Once people start using it they wonder why so many people run Windows and deal with all the problems you get when you run Windows.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 4:56 p.m.

You see, these Mac-Windows wars are funny because they both SUCK. Go for Linux, much better, and FREE. Linux doesn't get the respect it deserves. You might say, oh it's free, it can't be that good. But, once you've tried Ubuntu or Fedora or another popular graphical Linux-based OS, you don't go back. I had Windows XP on my computer until someone showed me Ubuntu. I then ordered a disc, which was free of charge and no shipping costs, and immediately installed it. It comes with an office suite, a messenger, a web browser, an E-Mail program, a calendar program, and a photo editor, plus much more, for free. although the aesthetic aspect isn't that great, it is said that this will be solved in the next release, which is also free to download.

And to you Apple fanatics out there, why do you even pay so much for something that is so uncustomizable and so expensive? They also ALL look the EXACT same. And to you iPod people, try a Zune. A 2nd gen. Zune, mind you. They are amazing. They could use some improvement, but, since you Mac people like aesthetically pleasing things, this is great for you. It might not have the intuitive click wheel that iPods do, but at least they have a far better graphical interface, as well as just a better all around system.

And to you out there using Windows, thanks. Thanks for feeding Bill Gates' addiction! MONEY! Good job guys. Thanks a lot.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:00 p.m.

Oh, and to the person that says you can't run a large business on Mac or Linux yet, look at GOOGLE, they run Gubuntu, which is Google's version of Ubuntu. And plenty of social networking sights use Macs.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:12 p.m.

Hey, I know I'm late to the fray, but I have to say this:

When it comes to die hard techs, they will all say use Mac OS X or Linux. Other techs will say they don't like Vista because the features they want aren't where they were in XP.

Those who are use to XP usually do not like Vista because everything has changed, and people do not like change. But to those who haven't really used a computer before, Vista is exactly what they need. Take for instance my grandmother, she could not use XP so she gave up on computers for a while. She just bought another computer with vista, and says she can use it just fine.

I think Vista is good for very novice computer users, after they get better, they can upgrade to XP or a mac.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:14 p.m.

Vista looks better, runs better, and has more features avaliable. You have to have the proper amount of ram, cpu speed, video card, etc. in order for it to work properly. Its easier to be bad at understanding how to build/buy a proper pc for the job but Vista is very reliable if you know what your doing.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:16 p.m.

Ah! They made Vista so people would like XP. Genius!

All the complainers should try another operating system (OS X, Ubuntu, Fedora�whatever) instead of whinging as if they have no say in the matter.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:26 p.m.

I don't see what all the complaints are about. I had Vista for four to five months now and it runs smoothly with any problems. The only problem had was with painter or scanner working the way they suppose due to manufacture like HP and Lexmark who never want update their hardware to 64bit platform or not at all for Vista. The real problem isn't Vista but with manufacture who don't want to update their products for Vista.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:43 p.m.

Reminds me of this old Apple ad... Crowd Control

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:45 p.m.

I'm a long-time Windows user (every flavor) and work as a mid-level manager for one of the largest PC manufacturers. My livelihood for most of my career has revolved around Microsoft and Intel. I say this only because 3 days ago, as much as I hated it, I bought a Mac for my own use. Not because of the inferiority of the hardware but because of the OS stability. I had not even considered a Mac until my XP systems began crashing frequently 3 months ago as I began stressing them more w/video, photography, and some web development. I got so frustrated that I visited an Apple store and was absolutely floored when I did in 10 minutes what it took me almost 2 weeks to do w/putting together the solution on Windows. So I switched. I'm not sure how the story will turn out, but there's a reason corporations have legions of techs that tests their applications before every hardware & software change and then lock down everything. And a big part of the reason is simply because of the overall instability inherent with Windows itself.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:57 p.m.

Vista is just fine. I have ran it from day one. Heaven forbid you make sure that your system can run the OS before you buy it. Heaven forbid you spend a little time and put just a little effort in finding out about the product first. Vista is not XP and was not supposed to be. And for the people that say they will get a Mac, please do. Get a Mac and profess how much better it is and then run an emulation of Windows anyway. Hypocrites.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 5:59 p.m.

Virus Infection Spyware Trojan Adware

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:00 p.m.

It's funny how people forget that XP had many of the same problems/complaiants when it came out too

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:05 p.m.

I uninstalled Vista successfully and installed Ubuntu on my wife and kids computers. They enjoy the games, free apps, their iPods, and the lack of, "You can continue working while Windows installs updates." They giggle at the wiggle of Beryl, and also enjoy multiple desktops.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:07 p.m.

vista is not that bad. every OS goes through growing pains. XP had just as many problems, if not more, when it first arrived. leopard had some major issues when it first made its appearance. i'm a long time mac user, and i work on xp and vista machines more than 98% of my work day. while i prefer mac, vista is just as capable as XP in many different areas. as far as compatibility with 3rd party software, just give it time.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:13 p.m.

http://gizmodo.com/337768/battlemodo-windows-vista-service-pack-1-rc1-vs-shipping-vista

http://www.news.com/Windows-XP-outshines-Vista-in-benchmarking-test/2100-1016_3-6220201.html

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/vista-sp1-performance-dud.html

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:18 p.m.

I think what people don't seem to get is that Microsoft didn't need to improve. Let's face it, 80% of the population doesn't even realize you can get a different operating system then what's on the Best Buy PC that you buy. Some know there's this Macintosh thing, but they've already conformed to MS.

Also, Vista functions fairly well. It is just a terrible memory hog, and takes Gestapo rule on security... which is why I sure as hell don't use it. With the fact that memory is cheap, MS has the primary share in a market of uneducated consumers, and Bill Gates retiring, there was no reason to come out w/ anything great.

Point is, get over it, switch to Linux, and keep an excessively bloated, expensive MS box to play the latest games on.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:19 p.m.

I own a buisness off of the oval and it made me smile as I drove in every morning. I run linux so that makes me a nub noose leetist

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:19 p.m.

I wonder about the people trying to fool themselves into believing "vista isn't that bad" look we all make bad purchases but why try to convince others to do the same? I don't understand why some people can be so mean to their fellow man.

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/01/30/speed_up_vista_tips/

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:24 p.m.

This Vista to xp argument is old. Anti virus and spyware problems are apparent in leopard and windows. Mac sells protection software. This little store is trying to get the cool geek credibility on the web. The sign is good though, I just think that anyone who can tell that xp is better than vista already knows how to fix their sh#$.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:28 p.m.

1.25 Ghz CPU, 1 GB ram, new 160 GB hard drive on a powerbook G4 , more than 4 years old and Leopard run on it, well, like a Leopard. Just amazing, it boots faster than Tiger and has general peppiness. New OS ought to be better than its predecessor. On the PC side, I am still at XP, even with a newly build quad core computer as I have heard most bad stories about Vista. And yes, I need PC evil for compatibility across work teams but mostly I do my work on Mac. I love it. That simple.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:33 p.m.

windows has always done something that macs never could. Play games. ill admit that you can play WoW. But while macs are level grinding in Azeroth, I'm fragging major a-- in Team Fortress 2. Vista does what i need, sure i may be running a quad-core 2.4 GHz with 3 gigs a RAM and a 8800GT, vista runs faster than XP did on my rig. ^.^

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 6:52 p.m.

Linux is the way to go my friends.

Reclaim your freedom, reclaim your computer,reclaim your dignity, reclaim your life!

I've seen computers running with 2GB of RAM that are still sap-slow because they use Vista! What a disaster!

1GB of RAM is still Plenty when using Linux, even if you want to use the snazzy Beryl graphics enhancements.

Plus with over 23,000 plus software packages free for install, Linux is vastly more powerful than any Windows product.

As for Microsoft's "Office" cash cow, it's about to go to slaughter because of programs like Thunderbird 3.0, Spicebird, and OpenOffice.org, which plan to include the PIM email client with Calendaring capabilities. Don't let Microsoft get away with trying to block other competitors out by not complying with standards!!

So tell everyone you know to pickup their free Linux LiveCD from
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
and get started being "free" by trying Linux today.

Also, ask companies everywhere to provide for Linux. One of the
biggest barriers right now for Linux is that the media and others try to put on that Linux doesn't even exist.

Shannon VanWagner
digg.com/users/bicep
healthysystem.blogspot.com

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:04 p.m.

Find out for yourself, buy one used and try it out.

Anatomy of a Mac:

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/macosx/#basics-anatomy

Mac 101:

http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/

Switch:

http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:06 p.m.

For those who say Windows Vista is for modern hardware,
and that the ones complaining are just retards... Did you know that Many computer vendors labeled their desktop PC's with "Vista compatible", and they SUCK?. Dont come saying that the bad reputation of Vista is the fault of few greedy users that dont want to upgrade, because millions of those systems were sold and they are slow as heck, specially the SRXXXXX models of the Compaq company.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:13 p.m.

Vista wasnt the best thing for MS. But I will say part of all these changes were due to pressure from companies, the open source, linux community etc about built in security etc. In the future MS, stop listening to these damn people and make it your way, like you did with XP. XP Pro is great.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:38 p.m.

To me it seems soo stupid to argue about Windows vs. Mac. People are soo closed minded and wouldnt even THINK to switch their OS to something different no matter what someone says. People have a tendency to assume whatever purchase/decision they made personally is the right one for everyone. It's all bull. Mac is right for me because its better...... to me. Some people like paying more for less. My friend thinks he is pretty tech savey and he really isn't. When my new Macbook Pro arrived loaded with Leopard he kept saying he "doesn't like all those stupid extras" although he said this, you could see his mouth water as i checked my voicemail Via Dashboard Widget. OS X Leopard is sweet no matter what way you slice it and if someone disagrees with that it's just fine with me. After all, the longer you Stubborn MS uses keep getting swindled, the longer i DONT need Anti-virus software : )

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 7:43 p.m.

There is nothing wrong with Windows Vista. XP had the same resistance when it first came out. Apple does not have a "secure" operating system. it has a less desirable operating system. when windows machines control 90% of the computer world why would anyone care about writing malicious code for anything else? it would be a waste of time. If Apple would lower the cost of their overpriced harware more people would buy it and install Leopard and then you'd see how "secure" their operating system really is.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:08 p.m.

In case you think the next version will be better, this is what Bill Gates (yes him) says about it: http://gizmodo.com/342920/holy-crap-did-bill-gates-just-say-windows-sucks

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:09 p.m.

gizmodo.com/342920/holy-crap-did-bill-ga
tes-just-say-windows-sucks

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:19 p.m.

Please, you call yourself a repair shop.... you should be out of business if people who upgrade to vista expect there old computer to work need to be taught a lesson. You can't use old hardware and software get with it and buy the new versions. I use OS X Leopard and Vista and have bought new printer and have no problems....

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:24 p.m.

FWIW. I bought an iMac a couple years ago with OS X - Tiger.
Every so often, while online, I'd get a pop-up notice that various software updates were required for my computer. I regularly ignored these notices.
Yesterday, on a Mercury Retrograde induced whim, when the notice appeared, I clicked for the updates.
There were download packages for OS X, iTunes, GarageBand, etc.
A whole 2 years worth of updates.
It took about 35 min to download, and restart took about 5 min.
It took me 2 clicks, which were instructions given to me by the process.
Everything worked fine.
That's what I like about Mac.
It works like it's supposed to even for a computer inept like me.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:25 p.m.

Too many people are repeating the myth that the Mac is virus-free due to market share. That doesn't make sense. Apple is a very visible company and the first hacker to take them down would earn everlasting fame (or infamy). Who would turn that down? Why, it must be just as easy as WIndows, right?

But wait, nobody's managed to do it. And beyond that, there is the interesting fact that the Mac virus count is not proportional to its market share. With tens of thousands of Windows viruses out there (I may be underestimating), should there not be a proportional number of Mac viruses? Even half of the proportional number of Mac viruses? There oughta be at least a thousand. Or a hundred.

But there are zero Mac viruses in the wild.

This means the market share argument is busted, because the math just does not work out. You have to start explaining the lack of self-spreading malware on the Mac on something like...oh, maybe the architectural integrity and security model of the operating system itself?

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:30 p.m.

bill gates is a smart man BUSINESS wise... thats y hes worth the billions he is, but he is out of it when it comes to the tech now.... he just manages the business end (which hes stopping soon and he'll just rake in the cash).... its his software engineers and programers that just suck balls

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 8:42 p.m.

There is nothing wrong with Vista. Yeah, your rubbish old software won't work properly but who care's when there are newer alternatives? All the problems people keep crying about have NEVER happened to me. I use all OS's including Fedora 8, Ubuntu Gutsy, and OSX Leopard, and every one has it's faults. All that is required to use Vista is a little simple common sence. If you lack that, Linux will just provide even more problems for you.

I know it's the cool thing to slag off Vista these days, but until you've given it longer than 30 seconds leave your childish judgements at home.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:01 p.m.

That is so funny.

Everyone I run into seems to say they wish they didn't have Vista.

When you buy a computer from Dell, you actually have to pay MORE for XP instead of Vista which is just ridiculous.

I use it at my job, but only use photoshop and illustrator so it isn't that bad.

Regards,

Jesus Lopez Viejo
www.liberalsVSconservatives.com

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:03 p.m.

Seriously, every single on of you guys just stroked each-other off. Microsoft makes an operating system. Apple makes a whole computer. And as for performance, microsoft makes an operating system and it's the hardware that has to catch up. Apple makes an operating system on the hardware they produce.

If you're to complain about Vista... Please don't use the software if you lack the hardware. 65 year old females don't last long in construction. Give vista a good service pack or two.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:06 p.m.

Anyone that thinks Macs are somehow "the answer" to their Vista problems is a retard. I use both every day in my job as a web designer, and Leopard is ten times buggier than Vista ever DREAMED of being.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:21 p.m.

Your only hurting yourself. I guess DirectX 10 means nothing to you? I personally run Vista and LOVE IT! I won't touch XP. Im a techey in town and i endorse Vista. XP's licenece sales will end soon, not soon enough though. Vista has groupped things together better. We relied on XP 2 long 5 years! 2002-2007. If your w/e doesnt wrk well guess what? TOUGH LUCK! I know we can't all afford to buy new stuff, but hey, what are you going to do?

XP will not use DX 10, its a vista thing, you would'nt understand.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:41 p.m.

I bought a brand new sony vaio on boxing day this year. I took it home and booted it up to see whether or not everybody was justified with tVista. My laptop booted into Vista fine, and as i was looking around, uninstalling programs I didn't want, installing Avast! Vista started to get on my nerves. It wasn't because I didn't know where to find all of the tools, you should expect that when you upgrade your OS. Vista was double checking everything I told it. It asked me to confirm everything. Installing new programs, uninstalling programs enabling my wireless internet. The list went on. After awhile I decided that Vista was no good for me.

So i got a copy of Xubuntu of off a friend and have been happy ever since. My favorite parts are that it works great, all the software is free, and bugs are fixed very promptly. I have actually never has Xubuntu crash.

Vista may work for some of you out there, but i would bet that you are not getting your money's worth, and you are not intellegently using your system's resourses.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 9:56 p.m.

vista is garbage, who cares about directx 10 when you have 22 different services spying on you??? plus you have no idea what kind of shit NSA put into it,

if that isn't enough for you not to use the OS, this piece of shit is slow, you have some idiotic services constantly monitoring if the OS is "genuine" and will lock your system up if you do bios/firmware update or install a new driver ...

i used vlite to cut every single thing i could except some hardware compatibility and drivers, the install size went down to like 640mb but guess what, this piece of shit still uses over 500mb of ram, compare that to 65mb used by customized xp.

it wouldn't surprise me if it had hidden logs keeping tabs on everything you do..

i still use xp to play games, but will be running linux only in the near future

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 10:00 p.m.

I'm not installing Vista. I still use Linux, XP, OS/2, W2K or W2K Server, because I bought expensive Software which run fine with all those OS's. I defy MAC because there is hardly any software available and not to tell about Open Source.
Vista is huge physically and gives with all that extra Gigabytes only in some cases a nice gui, but hardly support for some hardware.
I think XP will still run in 2015 or beyond. Remember Windows/NT? Some companies still run it because they have secured and customized it for their use and in those days OS's were somewhat lean.
Imagine to install a Vista System on 1 weekend on 10.000 company machines using the existing network? Forget it!

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 10:01 p.m.

I've been observing Vista vs XP vs OSX vs Linux debates and in summary the most important bits are about compatibility, performance and interface. Note that I am an engineer not IT pros.

Vista fails in the sense that it requires a powerful system to operate it which cost a lot(especially for organizations), is not backward compatible with older programs ie. forcing consumer to upgrade or be a dud so it's horrible for pros who uses $1000+ softwares (like me) and gamers alike, vista interface is just an eye candy which wears out in time the most important thing for me is workflow which sadly can be achieved by other OSes once u get used to it.

OSX and Linux are great but there's currently not many commercial and professional software developers willing to invest on porting their software to these system due to budget restriction and lower users compared to Win system users. Thus I think these systems are great for enthusiast, IT professionals, Colleges and schools. I personally use gentoo and ubuntu at home.

XP while it is not the newest kid in town is backward compatible with older softwares with a few exceptions, while sometimes it wasn't stable or secure, SP2 have fixed its problems, interface wise it did not diverge from the previous version so much so ppl can adapt to it gradually making a smoother transition (Office2007 has totally mess up the workflow in my office).

So overall I am still addicted to XP unless M$ starts to make it moee reliable, lite, backward compatible I just cannot justify any transition to vista even if its for fun cos its NOT fun.

cheers

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 10:48 p.m.

fugg Micro$oft for overpriced, overblown software. fugg Apple for overpriced period. Ubuntu ftw. Simple, effective, FREE, solid, etc... If I didn't need M$ knowledge for my career I'd likely jump ship completely.

-This message written from a WinXP machine...

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 11:03 p.m.

I would love to give MAC OS a go but there is no way in hell i am buying a whole new computer, that my current one shits all over, for more than i paid for mine just to do it.
As for people saying Vista is shit and i didn't buy it cos i heard bad reviews. the stories you hear are all based on the one retard who started a roumor.
I have been using vista forever and i love it as anyone who uses vista for a couple of months will tell you there is no way i would go back to xp. vista may use more ram than other os's but the only time i ever get near filling my 2gb is when i'm playing the most recent games, which i can't do on other os's anyway. once you turn off user account control which you do as soon as vista first launches before you install your drivers vista never gets in your way at all. it is smooth as silk to use and once you use it for a month or so you can get to anything you want in half the time it takes in XP.
to people who dual boot a windows with anything just so they can play their games who can be bothered rebooting just to play a game when anything else you can do in your other os you can easily do in windows.

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 11:04 p.m.

You can pay them to do that or you can download Ubuntu Linux and all the applications you want... for free. If you can use XP then you can use Ubuntu... if you can install XP then you can install Ubuntu.

(no affiliation, just a very satisfied user)

Posted by unregistered user at 1/31/08 11:53 p.m.

i don't ee any troubles w vista, but i'm no need it.

Posted by Nebula36 at 2/1/08 12:16 a.m.

I notice that most of the people complaining about Vista are either Mac zealots or already pre-disposed to be Microsoft and Bill Gates haters, therfore everything that the company puts out automatically "sucks".

I've used both Macs and PCs extensively over the years, and I'm still not impressed with any Mac computer, or Leopard. I've also used open-source Linux-based systems, but they're a big yawner to me.

I rarely have problems with Windows-based systems on my Dell. On the other hand, I've seen plenty of people at school having problems with their Macs. Of course, they try to pretend it's not really happening! Ha ha.

Sometimes I think the people posting such anti-Microsoft stuff work at the Apple Store.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 12:18 a.m.

Here's my take on the issue:
I'm a system admin at a small business. I own OSx, Linux, and Windows 2K and XP machines. They all work fine.
Most of our staff are running XP Pro on our domain and it works just fine. A few staff have their own Macs on the WiFi side, and they do fine, too.
I recently had to replace the workstations for the Owner and a senior VP, and I decided to go with Vista.
Bad mistake.
The owner has withdrawn into his Mac laptop; he just doesn't like Vista and is more comfortable with his Mac. He uses the Vista machine when he has to (for specific accounting and order-entry applications) but only then.
The VP has been plagued with problems; even though this is a new computer (an HP) sold with Vista installed, he's had a raft of trouble with his Palm HotSync (it still doesn't work, and Palm tech support managed to lose all of his data) and Adobe Acrobat required a month of dealing with tech support to get it to work at all.
I own a copy of Vista and I'm in no hurry to install it.
For what it's worth...

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 12:36 a.m.

My mac stopped working and wouldn't support my printer, scanner, or graphics tablet when they switched from OS9 to OSX.

Recently we switched all of our office computers to Leopard and half of them stopped working. They still won't sync calendars and several other issues.

All major system software upgrades are going to be a pain. That is just the way it goes.

I'm sure Vista is going to be fine in a few months and then I will have to listen to all the Windows geeks telling me how much better it is than my Mac all over again.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 12:43 a.m.

I used vista for a while before release, and my dad has a laptop with it on. (I also have a fried who agrees with me on this)

I think vista is a better OS for a number of reasons, mainly the fact it manages hardware better. My AMD athlon XP 2000+ and 512MB DDR Ram were more efficiently used on vista, and my dad has had no trouble adapting to it.

I genuinely prefer it to XP. Get with the times, it's fun to learn a new piece of software!

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 12:50 a.m.

you Guys are dumb, and not exatcly in the range or area. Just plain dumb. Vista is an organazational masterpeice. You just forgot when we upgraded from 98 to win2k or from 2k to xp. After all the updates and the first service pack everything was smooth and now that they released the next OS you knock it. READ THE recomended system requirements before putting it on you moms compaq that doesnt even qaulify to run xp. 1GB of ram PC 3200 recomended and NO not the P.O.S Athlon XP 1800. Give me a break You guys just got relaxed and just can't give into change.
Ive been running vista on my P4 3.0ghz w/ hyperthreading
No dual core no 64 bit and it runs great.

BTW I never tried linux but heard it was great, just dont have the time gotta learn everything about vista so I can teach you ANti-microsoft how to use it. you might actually learn something. Mac OS BLOWS ALL APPLE/MAC

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 1:00 a.m.

I bought a laptop with Vista installed at an amazing price as a first day Vista promotion. I worked with Vista for about a week and hated it because of all the crashes and bugs. So I asked my boss for an enterprise XP license to upgrade to XP. It worked well with a few driver problems (especially the DVD burner which didn't burn DVD+ discs) since it was a computer designed for Vista. Now 2 weeks short of a year later I installed Vista again and my computer runs much better. Many of the bugs have been fixed and the computer crashes much less than with XP.

MY CONCLUSION:
There are XP machines and there are Vista machines, and it's best to use the OS that your machine was designed for. All this said I think next time I'll consider shelling out an extra couple hundred bucks for a MAC.

MY CONCLUSION:
There are XP machined and there are Vista machines, and it's best to use the OS that your machine was designed for.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 1:27 a.m.

Just use XP.
I've been using vista for over a year now with lots of frustrations. And i am running it on a quad core / 4gb mem / scsi drive computer. Problems with deleting folders which need special permissions even though i set it up correctly. Slow tranfer speeds. Crashing media center..and you can go on for hours.

Last night i went back to XP after Vista messed up my bootfiles and not a bloody chance to repair it with the CD. Have to say, i'm glad i went back. XP seemed to be alot quicker, less problems with installing drivers and software. The only thing i miss is the sleek interface of Vista but thats all i can say!

Stay with XP!

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 1:36 a.m.

GET A MAC!

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 1:38 a.m.

User that reports all the Mac problems is either lying or a freaking idiot!
I'm sure it's one of those Microsoft damage control team members pretending to be a user.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 2:07 a.m.

I have been working on pcs for 15 years now and vista is a mess. The silly security and the effects that suck up your resources, its all pointless.

At least with xp you can tweak it to run more efficiently. Also gaming has a lot of issues.

I reinstalled xp because of these problems.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 2:31 a.m.

ok, reading through these comments there are a lot of mixxed views, i remember when xp came out, initialy there was the new os hate that attaches itself to windows. But xp was a deffinate step up, look at ME, what the hell were they thinking with that. My current laptop came with vista. frst thing i did was to remove all the pretty addons and stylised user interface aspects. what was left seemes aimed at people with no computer skill at all. that is to say, it tries to be helpfull. so helpfull in fact you cant work out where things are for the fist couple of attempts. dont get me started on office 2007.

ony reason im using vista is the 64bit aspect, if xp64 was suported id go back to it in a shot

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 3:32 a.m.

My youngster has a computer engineering degree and said, "Dad, you and mom need a better computer. W2K is old now." So he brought home an old game box of his (flashing blue leds on the motherboard and wild fan noises whenever the cpu is given real work to do!), cleaned it up, and installed Vista as well as upgraded versions of most all our programs.
Man, it is FAST in everything it does, rock stable, but the user interface is giving me grief. It makes me feel old and dumb.
File management is daunting now. File search must be above my paygrade, I can not make the thing work. I have failed at almost every attempt at customization. The dreamy, pastel screen colors make things tough for these old eyes to make out; and finding my way around on each cluttered, effeminate page is less than intuitive.
I'm sure if I took a WinVista class all these difficulties would melt away. But right now it presents almost like another language�a steep learning curve.
Transitioning to the first IBM/PC from the old Texas Instrument TI-99, I was an early Microsoft user, STRONG in all the MSDOS's, but progressively less so in each successive Windows release as the machine, which I understood, became further and further concealed down arbitrary pathways. Until now I can't find my old friend underneath all the cloth and lace.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 3:57 a.m.

Everything that I have heard about Vista, my next upgrade will be to Ubuntu linux

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 4:06 a.m.

I disagree that XP was disliked as much as Vista when it was released. It was basically the consumer version of the well received Windows 2000, and it replaced the horrible 95/98/ME. There were some compatibility and driver issues, but I don't know anyone that suggested people uninstall it and go back to Windows 98 or ME. Of course, Windows "blaster worm" XP eventually became the butt of many jokes until SP2.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 4:29 a.m.

lol I love how many people complain about how bad Vista is. I've been running 64-bit with 0 issues for 4 months now. If you understand the tool that your using it makes it alot harder to screw up.
Its like people complaining about buying a build it yourself desk cause they forgot to attach one of the legs.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 4:33 a.m.

Once you go Ubuntu you will never want to go back to Windows or Mac.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 4:34 a.m.

I switched completely to linux around the year 2001. Back then, it was absolutely more cumbersome to use than Windows (albeit much more stable). Especially playing videos was not very good back then.

Nowadays, it's the other way around. Media support is now much better in linux than in windows, there's Flash, there's a good Office alternative, there are 2 great desktop environments to choose from, etc,etc.

For those applications you used to use under windows, and for which there aren't any linux alternatives, there's WINE, which is now getting so good that I can run almost any app I throw at it, including most modern games.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 5:16 a.m.

As a long-time IT professional... all I can say is that XP satisfies both my business and personal computing needs. I don't need and/or want Vista.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 6:00 a.m.

My parents got a new Laptop in spring of 07 with Vista. I tried to help them the best I could but was frustrated and after much research realized how terrible that OS really is. I bought a new computer 4 weeks ago....MAC. I will never own a Microsoft machine again. Thanks Vista for pushing me over the edge to a better computing world.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 6:15 a.m.

I have Vista on my desktop, and OS X on my laptop. I have used XP for years. I really haven't had many problems with Vista, as for software compatibility, you can change the settings so Vista emulates XP, 98, 2000, whatever version the software was designed for. My main concern with it, is that no matter how much I increase my RAM, Vista will ALWAYS take half of it at idle. My next desktop will be a Mac.

Posted by Moejj at 2/1/08 6:34 a.m.

My only complaint about vista is the lack of driver support. On my Gateway notebook, no audio drivers. After hunting all over the I'net, I found some drivers, but have to shutoff driver signing. I did a registry hack, and VOILA! audio w/o having to hit F8 everytime I boot. Then some effen update was pushed down, and no more driving signing permanently shutoff. MUST do F8 everytime on boot to shutoff driver signing. Then on my desktop, zero drivers for my Adaptec 2490 SCSI UW adapter. no tapebackup, ZIP or HD if I want to run Vista on my desktop. In a nutshell, Vista kinda' made me pista'!!!

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 6:36 a.m.

I tried to use vista in my business when I needed to upgrade our system. Unfortunately many of the programs I already own wouldn't function properly and I find it easier to build a new system with xp than try and make everything conform to vista. The system with vista was returned.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 6:55 a.m.

thats why linux is here!
works better than windows in everything and costs 0% of what apple does.

ubuntu.com

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 7:00 a.m.

you guys all suck. vista is a way good os. you just probably have a way crappy low end computer. Vista's search program is like god juice. not only that. if your not computer illiterate its almost impossible to break the thing.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 7:23 a.m.

this is crazy everyone bashing vista all the time...

yes vista has many bugs, yes all the "new" features were removed prior to launch, but every OS has problems. it's just that vista gets alot more complaints because a lot more people use it.

Linux guys are all into really customizing their stuff.. i've never met a "non computer literate" person use linux, so of course they will always like it. i've used ubuntu for college as well as 3 or 4 other distros and they've all got different problems.

macs, they don't have viruses because there isnt' enough people using them to create viruses.. you elitests that think macs are soo "secure" are just nieve.. all it takes is someone with enough paitents and time to just make the viruses..

and with both alternatives, the reason they work pretty well is because they are very controlled in their application. Mac OS was only used on MAC hardware, now they can run windows, there aren't as many crappy programs out for macs that will corrupt the system and crash it, but windows has TONS of crap out there to screw with your system.

there is mass destruction with massive usage by the populas.

my intent isn't to say that Vista is the best.. cause that's just not true.. but it's clearly not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 7:32 a.m.

Switched to Mac last November after many many years of being a MS fanboy like we see lots of here. I can not believe how easily I can make a computer do what I want it to do now. Unfriggin believable the amount of crap I used to deal with on my windoze machines.

I used to spout the same old anti-apple bullshit until I found out it was really all wrong. But now I am realizing that most Mac people are really familiar with both PC's and Mac's and can speak from direct comparison while most anti-apple folks have never used one. They just continue (like I did) to spout the same old anti mac crap their friends tell them. I'm glad im not a winsheep anymore.

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 8:02 a.m.

Wow, I saw that the other day when I went to pick up my car from the shop!

Posted by unregistered user at 2/1/08 8:18 a.m.

Uauu, the endless blog of opinions that nobody cares about.
True, vista does suck but only because lack of cooperation between microsoft and manufacturers.
Regarding viruses and M$, well, they are the big ones, and they are a target, simple as...
Let Mac get big, and lets see what happens, there are viruses for every OS!
Regarding linux, well, I use it at home, and at work, but I am turning back to XP, because of the applications needed, my only problem with linux is that every 13 year old is a developer of a massively uncoordenated effort of doing something, and instead of unifying and improving, linux geeks then to branch out...
Waste of time, that is why it will always be "small", but as far as work wise, security, etc, it is a great work machine/server
as a gui? my god, fix KDE, fix GNOME, and for god sake make updated graphics drivers