Vista - Yes or No?

[LonghornXP]

EDIT: Moved into a new thread

I've been known to be somewhat bleeding edge but I just couldn't stand Vista after about three weeks. This is from a person coming from Win98 SE to Windows XP the day XP was released as even the early XP was so much better compared to Win98 SE. That was when I bought a new computer with XP installed to avoid issues with drivers on core internals. Beyond that I always buy major brand name hardware that is highly likely to get updated drivers. So I tend to buy digital camera's that can function like a hard drive even if the bundled software doesn't work. My old digital camera by Sony worked out of the box the first day I had XP and even the Sony software worked very very well using XP. My Brother Laser printer also had open source drivers for Windows XP before official Brother drivers were out. Brother had official drivers out about two weeks after XP was released. The key is sticking with companies that have had a very good track record with providing timely and decent drivers for new released operating systems. Creative was also very good with XP but they have been horrid for Vista support thus far. Very bad drivers and very slow and even now the official drivers don't support 5.1 sound nor SPDIF output.

Because Windows 98 SE was just so bad and unstable that if you could have any type of a working system with XP at its release you were crazy not to switch right away. Now things are different because XP for the most part has been one solid OS and stable while Vista doesn't even seem beyond a beta at this point in time. On my system the sound cracks way too much for my taste. The system overall runs very slow compared to XP and I'm not even using AERO. I had to turn off UAC as it kept nagging me to death. DVD Burning seemed to have major slowdowns for a reason I still haven't figured out yet using many free and paid for software programs such as Nero 7, IMG Burn and DeepBurner to name a few.

I didn't even bother using my ipod as Vista will screw the heck out of it. iTunes just barely runs under Vista and in my case it crashed once daily. Beyond that my D-Link DSM-320 always worked great using Tversity under XP mainly for its transcoding ability. Tversity under Vista doesn't launch on startup as it should so I must start the problem and select to restart the server. Beyond that FFDshow refuses to work anymore so nothing gets transcoded.

Also some of my family pictures would crash explorer while viewing the folder in thumbnail view. The green bar would move across the path window bar and just get stuck until I'm forced to CTRL-ALT-DEL and end the task which takes almost 5 entire minutes from start to finish as its so deadly slow. After that it takes almost 3 minutes until explorer fully restarts again and brings the taskbar and such back.

I hate saying this but I'm going to say it anyway but right now I consider Vista to be the worst OS Microsoft has ever made and yes I said even worse than Windows ME as its that bad. For all the time and money Microsoft spent on this POS I think they need to start firing quite a few people because they just aren't getting their money's worth and if anything they are throwing it away left and right.

 

[RandallA]

"I consider Vista to be the worst OS Microsoft has ever made and yes I said even worse than Windows ME as its that bad."

Whoa, that's bad. I don't think it's as bad as ME but it's up there. I installed ME a few months after it was released, half an hour later I went back to Windows 98 SE. It was just horrible.

Vista has a lot of problems but I wouldn't compare it to ME. To me, Windows ME is still the worst OS that Microsoft has released.

 

[LonghornXP]

"I consider Vista to be the worst OS Microsoft has ever made and yes I said even worse than Windows ME as its that bad."

Whoa, that's bad. I don't think it's as bad as ME but it's up there. I installed ME a few months after it was released, half an hour later I went back to Windows 98 SE. It was just horrible.

Vista has a lot of problems but I wouldn't compare it to ME. To me, Windows ME is still the worst OS that Microsoft has released.

I've used Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista all within two weeks of their release dates and I never remembered any of them being more bug laden and slow compared to Vista. Windows ME wasn't any worse than Windows 98SE so that was never the problem people had with ME. The entire problem with ME that made it the worst OS Microsoft ever made was the fact they added so few features and charged tons of money for it. It was more like Windows 98 Third Edition with a media player upgrade and a few other things that really would be what Microsoft added for free in the past using a Service Pack. For those that got a new computer with ME installed they didn't get a bad OS at all and it worked just as well if not better than Windows 98SE.

I consider that very different but that is just me. Now when XP came out it was no doubt that XP was better as it was the first consumer OS Microsoft released that was built upon the Windows 2000 kernel while also supporting great amounts of multimedia software and hardware. It was like putting all the multimedia features in the Win9x OS with the stable core of the 2000 product line.

Right now XP is based on the 2000 kernel which is very stable while Vista is based on the Server 2003 kernel. The problem is that all the fancy features they added just barely work or they don't work at all. The OS overall adds very little additional benefit. Also what little benefit it offers requires new hardware to support AERO. The ReadyBoost thumb drive thing doesn't even work. You have what five versions that feature this and that. The OS overall runs very very slow no matter what you do. Yes some of these issues could be the third party drivers but I doubt it as so many issues having nothing todo with problem hardware drivers nor problem software.

Also I've had more crashes on Vista in my three weeks than I've ever had in all my years of using XP (using XP since October 25, 2001 when I bought it at mid-night at CompUSA on release date as part of a computer tower purchase) so that is why I consider Vista to be worse. I also bought XP to use on my old computer (that had ME installed) and did a fresh install and XP was very fast compared to ME.

Because Vista was more buggy and so much slower compared to XP it would be the same thing if XP was slower than ME when XP came out. In no way should a brand new OS be slower with the same hardware without any reason for the slowdown. Hey if my computer had a graphics chipset that supported AERO and I had 1GB of RAM I would understand the slowdown and I knew the reason for it. But my computer didn't support AERO at all so nothing extra was being rendered that would have resulted in such a massive slowdown.

The point I was getting at is that this is the worst start for any OS upgrade you can ever have and I don't have hope that anytime soon things would improve. At least with XP you had a clear cut speed improvement with clear cut multimedia support. Yes it still had bugs but as those were fixed it only got better. Vista today unlike XP needs an entire year and Service Pack just to match the speed and bugs of XP when XP launched.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I created this to continue the discussion started in the computers 101 thread posted. To keep that thread focused on good FAQs and allow this thread to focus on the debate over Vista.

Posts will migrate here momentarily...

 

[rockymtnhigh]

My thoughts on vista

When I was visiting my Dad, I got to play with Vista for the first time. I was NOT impressed at all. Didn't care for how it was reorganized. Turned off the silly animations; did not like the transparent windows. Found the control panel setup to be frustrating.

I am buying a new tablet pc, and the first thing I am making sure is that I can get WinXP on it.

 

[LonghornXP]

Thanks for moving it as I was just thinking about moving into a new thread myself lol.

 

[meStevo]

I don't mind Vista... i loved XP, it and 2k are by far my most stable and satisfying OS experiences, and I hope that Vista gets to that point too.

I had slowness and whatnot during beta, but I build a new machine after Vanguard launched and purchased Vista to put onto it and have not regretted it. Just need the horsepower to enjoy it I think.

Using such a new product has certainly had its shortcomings... I can no longer use Windows Media Player in any form, and cannot reinstall it because it is part of the OS. I've tried just doing reinstalling from the disc from within windows as that is a known fix, but I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to get the OS to boot again.

Some fiddling later I was able to abort the install process that had started and recover my system.

It's certainly nowhere near Windows ME as far as stablity and OS decay... and to me just feels like a bulker XP, so I just make sure I have the RAM and HDD space to accomodate it.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Thanks for moving it as I was just thinking about moving into a new thread myself lol.

NP. I realized it was a valuable topic in itself.

 

[Ramy]

When it comes to OS's especially MS OS's I wait until the first Service Pack because there is always problems.

 

[Foxbat]

This is good intel (no pun intended). I have been investigating MiniPCs to replace the Mini Book that we got my Dad 4-5 years ago. It came with XP Home and my Father seems comfortable with it. However, the design is crippled with only being able to support 256 MB of RAM (I tried a couple of 512 MB SoDIMMs before I got the answer back from Wintergreen that 256 was it.) This system has killed the 20 GB Toshiba 2.5" HDD it came with because the system spends most of its time swapping to the Page file. Sounds like time for a new PC.

So, I started looking at new boxes, but everything is Vista now. Even my Dad has heard horror stories from his friends and acquaintances regarding how bad Vista is. What I would do at this point is get him one of the new Mini designs and install XP Home on it instead of giving him Vista. Since I'm his Go-To Guy for Tech Support, I'm not about to send him off into the Northern Wilds with a support time bomb.

I would get him a Mac Mini, but that would require a paradigm shift for him to give up all his personal organizer software (Lotus Suite, mostly) and switch to the Mac iLife stuff. Plus, all his docking set-ups are PS2, not USB, so there's more money to spend on top of the Mini's $600. On the plus side, at least my parents and my in-Laws would be running the same OS.

 

[BigTimMN]

I like Vista, its nothing revolutionary, but some of the eye candy along with the gadget bar are nice. I dont recommend people upgrading to it, just to have it. But If you buy a PC with it, make sure you get Vista Premium in the least, the Aero effects are cool.

Its been rock solid stable for me, of course i havnt really put it to a major test (except for folding..). I am lucky as to not have any extra "junk" installed as I did a clean install with my Vista Upgrade disk i got from Dell, no extra programs, so thats making my life a bit easier and cutting down the conflicts. The only reason i jumped early is that I do work on PCs as a side business and I knew that i would be getting calls from customers... and I Have, all the ones that have gotten it seem to like it, once they get used to it. It seems that some people cant handle change and get spooked if the icons arent in the same place.

 

[LonghornXP]

Hey FoxBat if you want to buy a Dell with Windows XP Home Edition they still sell select models with XP instead of Vista and they are all brand new too. For a cheap model this is what I'd suggest for your family.

Dell Dimension E521
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3600+
Windows XP Home Edition SP2
1GB DDR2 RAM (2 512MB Dimms in dual channel mode)
16x DVD+-RW drive.
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
7.1 channel onboard sound
Dell Keyboard and Mouse
56k modem and ethernet
160GB hard drive.

No floppy drive
No monitor
No speakers
Microsoft Works 8 (doesn't include Microsoft Word).

Again this system is brand new built to order and comes with a one year parts and labor warranty and you can buy upto 4 years on an extended warranty.

Everything above costs 379.00 total. It also ships for free as well. So if it does cost more than 379.00 it would be because of tax.

Here is the link to go and configure the system. When going through the configuration you will need to remove the monitor which will subtract 150 bucks to get the proper price.

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/winxp_dimen?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=anavml

The link above takes you into the Dell Windows XP offerings and just select the E521 model and configure it.

 

[Foxbat]

Thanks, Longhorn, but my folks are snowbirds. They spend the winter in Florida, come "home" for a month, go to northern Lake Michigan for the summer months, come back for the fall and Holidays, then it's back to Florida again. He had a Thinkpad before the MiniBook, but the small screen (13" dual-scan LCD) was hard to read. The MiniBook was more powerful than the Thinkpad and is about the size of a paperback book, plus it weighs only three pounds or so. He takes the system between locations and has a printer, keyboard, mouse, and LCD at each of the three locations so all he has to do is plug everything in when he gets there.

He likes this system since he plugs in a nice, big, 19" LCD screen that he couldn't get with a laptop and isn't paying for a screen he wouldn't be using.

 

[Jared Twomey]

Would I upgrade to Vista, NO
But I bought a new Dell laptop about a month ago, and I haven't really regretted having Vista yet. Everything runs fairly stable and I haven't had any more issues with Vista than I have with XP, 98, XP, ect...
Just my opinion....
O, i will say, when I first got my dell laptop it had issues... I reinstalled vista from the included disk, it didnt have all that crapware stuff they bundle, and I haven't had any problems since.

 

[dfergie]

I have a new notebook with Vista... not impressed with it and not able to to get it to network nicely either wireless or wired and share files with my XP pc's...

 

[goaliebob99]

I dont understand how everyone is having problems with vista as im not... I have had absolutly no issues (knock on wood) even with my ipod. I am upgrading my other computer to vista ultimate 64, (same version that I have on the notebook) When I get home.

 

[Ramy]

Try to network your computers Bob and see if you still have problems.

 

[Brewer4]

My company and my specialty is deploying assets and OS/patches, etc. I've been using Vista for the past 2 years in multiple test scenarios. I have found that there is absolutely nothing on the surface that should be compelling for someone to upgrade. I do like the embedded parental controls but I find the hardware requirements and lack of backward compatibility frustrating.

I have not fully analyzed the security aspects of the software versus XP but I find the Mac commercial showing all the confirmation requests completely annoying. Now a brand new PC with a beefed up video card, Vista looks good. I also like the Media Center embedded in it. Thats what I take advantage of in my house.

All this being said, here is my skinny. A good patched and updated XP blows away Vista in stability and speed. If you need Media Center features and have a brand new PC, then go with Vista. If you dont, I see absolutely no reason to use Vista. XP is not perfect but I think its pretty darn good if kept up to date.

 

[TheForce]

The simple answer to the Vista question is this-
Do you need a good home media and information server?

Yes- Get Vista
No- stay with XP.

 

[Stargazer]

I have Vista and not very happy with the performance in some aspects and definitely not happy with the compatability issues with software/hardware. I think XP would run a bit better. I got no cd with my laptop, they put the OS on the hard drive. What happens if your hard drive crashes? Do they expect me to pay for another CD or OS? That's CRAP! Since this Sony Vaio I paid $1,400 for has an OEM Vista version and I called Microsoft and the pre-recorded message says I have to call my manufacturer, can I still get XP for free like I have heard others getting if they had Vista problems?