Vista’s death march picked up some pace after a metrics researcher revealed that nearly 35 per cent of PCs built to run the Windows operating system have been downgraded to XP.
In a survey of more than 3,000 computers, performance testing software developer Devil Mountain Software estimated that more than one in three new machines had either been downgraded by vendors such as Dell, or by customers once they bought the PC…
That’s a damning verdict on an OS that Microsoft still wants frustrated customers to love.
The software beast has already admitted it made some pretty big mistakes with Vista. Now, after trying some heavy duty marketing, Microsoft has finally conceded it’s high time to move on by explaining how MS will engineer Windows 7.
I left the wonderful world of Microsoft OS’ three years ago. Never looked back.
I’ve got XP-ME on two machines. One’s fairly good, and the other’s merely a little flaky. XP was a lot more stable…. That said, I like the thumbnail view of a minimized window and the sidebar. I don’t like being unable to access most of the nominally shared files on either machine from the other. (A “server” of sorts on an XP box is a little help, but….)
(The Vista version of Solitaire is dumbed down to the point of silliness….)
I had to replace my A/V software and a couple other things, but, other than WP8 refusing to save files, most of that was minor.
It’d be nice if I could get SP1 on one of these boxes, but it refuses to install. If I let “Auto-Update” do it, it says it did, but only takes a minute or two. Trying to do it manually results in a barf about halfway through, with an incomprehensible error message and useless follow-up.
I have a retail copy of XP I could subvert (the machine it was running on is deceased), but pure inertia (and the “maybe” factor of finding drivers) have kept me from swapping it on that machine.
“Disappointing” is a polite statement.
I can’t switch to Linux or Apple – my clients are running mixes of Win98 and XP, and, well, aren’t about to switch out 20 machines just to keep me happy.
Same old same old here – push in a bunch of “it would be nice” features, without fixing other issues, and with bugs in the new stuff, too.
Regards
#22
Yeah, they did make sharing more complicated with Vista. I got it to the point that I can share any folder, but when I connect from another machine you have to put in your user name and password. Kind of annoying. I run FreeNAS instead of Windows on my fileserver so it’s not something I have to deal with very often.
If SP1 won’t install you’re probably missing a driver somewhere. Updating the motherboard/chipset drivers might help, and make sure there aren’t any yellow exclamations in Device Manager.
i was forced to get vista with a laptop that i purchased, and honestly i havent really had any problems with it. i have and will not purchase vista with free alternatives like open office.
This means that i am unable to sync my windows mobile device to windows mail, because you need the version that comes with office to be able to sync. Luckily I was able to find a program (finchsync) to sync my windows mobile device with thunderbird.
I agree it’s a lot of FUD… but not all of it.
I have Vista because it came preloaded on my Toshiba… and once I killed the UAC BS and set up Kapersky, I never had another problem.
The only reason I haven’t kept Vista onto my desktop is simply because of compatibility issues… but those issues are more logically blamed on drivers from a few hardware vendors (I’m looking at you, Creative Labs) and on the fact that I still run a number of apps that are long in the tooth.
I think Vista is fine. Kill Aero and UAC, set up your own security, and turn the desktop back to the Win2K appearance (if like me, you want absolute simplicity), and its fine.
But that is, just the problem. It is fine. And fine is a word that typically means the same as, “there just isn’t anything new or innovative, but it works.” So in fact, Vista, which works fine, offers me no features or benefits over the existing OS (aside from cosmetic stuff), eats up more power, and costs more.
Essentially, it’s only real problem is that no one needed an upgrade from XP in the first place.
But it works just fine.
One of my good friends has Vista and seems to have few real issues with it. Another old friend who does development and database work declares they will pry Windows 200 from his cold dead hands as it was the last quality piece of software that Microsoft produced. Different strokes and all that.
#24 True. In addition it requires more hardware than XP did to run fine. On these threads I haven’t been able to get one person to list the real benefits of using Vista over XP for the average home or business user.
So, higher h/w requirements (more $) & no additional benefit = crap product.
I would, I gave my new Dell Vista computer away to another group at work.
I’ll keep my old XP machine
I gotta agree with the comments about the new office being confusing. I really don’t like the ribbon, it just isn’t working for me.
As far as development, virtual machines are the only way to go. I use VMWare but there are lots of good options.
The other problem with Vista in the enterprise is that many corporations have some critical third party apps from small vendors that were written 10 years ago (or more) in technologies like VB6 and Delphi. These things are a pain in the ass to test and upgrade.
I’ve got Vista on my current desktop machine. Some things work just as good as they did in XP, but performance stinks (it’s not a bit better on a dual core 2.2GHz system than Linux on a 1.7GHz Centrino).
Only reason I currently still use it: it’s fully configured with apps and stuff and has my calender on it.
pj
#27
For home users the biggest change is mostly the added security. Other than the recent .net and activeX issues there have only been a handful of security issues with Vista, compared with literally hundreds for XP. Plus 64-bit Vista isn’t affected by most of them, including the .net and activex bugs.
#25 and anyone else who turned off UAC:
Have you tried turning UAC back on once you got your computers all set up? When I’m working on a new system I turn it off while I install everything and then turn it back on when I’m done. I very rarely see the UAC popup after that.
I actually prefer the way UAC works to having to type in my password every time I want to do admin stuff in OSX and Ubuntu.
My experience so far is that Vista is the most frustrating piece of software out of Redmond to date. Hardware or games not developed in the past two years? Forget it. And you can forget about modern games, too. Vista is a massive resource hog that eats up your system memory like the blob.
My loathing for all things Microsoft is fading quickly when the criticism is unfair. Heck… I tried my darndest to boycott them back in the days when Linux really sucked… but couldn’t get my dial up modem to work and gave up. Now, however, this time around, things are actually unfair. Yes, they are monolithic. Yes, Vista isn’t perfect… but, frankly, it works very well.
I’d run Vista on the following specs:
Quadrule XEON Dual-Cores 3.2Ghz
16 gigs of ram
(server MOBO with PCI-X)
8×250 SCSI HD’s in RAID-10 (4xRaid-1′s JBOD) with dedicated backplane and controller (PCI-X) with 2G of backplane RAM
NVidia 8600GT 512M
Dual power supplies
However, I doubt I could get the Vista drivers for the MOBO & SCSI for such a setup.
Friends of mine actually upgraded from XP to Windows Server 2003 R2 on their laptops.
Runs really well.
#31 – Have you tried turning UAC back on once you got your computers all set up?
No… What is the advantage? I understand UAC as a security measure and all of my security is controlled by third party apps.
#31 “For home users the biggest change is mostly the added security.”
You’re kidding, right? I made a regular user account for my young daughter on Vista (running AV, AS, FW, etc.) and within days it had 1100 infected files and a root kit on it. Due to the stupid kernel restrictions MS laid on Sec companies (including the anemic kernel APIs) I had to get the root kit out by hand.
So, still waiting for a list of REAL benefits…
#35
UAC alerts you any time any software requests admin privileges, just like all other major OS’s have done for years. The idea is that it can protect your system from malicious software that hasn’t been identified yet. If you’re surfing the internet or you put in a music CD with a rootkit and suddenly UAC pops up without you doing anything you can click cancel and it wont allow the malicious software to run.
It’s not perfect, but it is a major security improvement.
#36
I hate to be rude, but I don’t really believe you since I know from your other comments that you’ve got some sort of irrational hate for Vista.
I really wish people would stop bringing up bogus claims like that story about Microsoft not working with security companies. That story was never true to begin with.
#37 I could care less what you think. I’ve forgotten more about PC security than you’ve ever known.
Have you looked at the APIs in question. Have you worked with MS during the dev of Vista security?
Thought not.
#39
Well, do you have any proof that Microsoft hasn’t worked with security companies? Any articles that show that detection rates are worse on Vista? Last I checked every major virus scanner was available and fully functional under Vista.
Its just really hard for me to believe you when I haven’t seen any of these issues working around 80 or so Vista machines for the last several months, and I’ve been using it at home since the commercial launch.
I’m tired of the all the Vista FUD.
I downgraded my new Dell from Vista to XP Pro for two reasons. Vista kept blue screening on me. Toward the end it blue screened four times in one week. Also, I realized I would have to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade some of the development tools I use to Vista compatible versions with no other benefit other than running on Vista. It took a while to locate all the XP drivers, but was worth in in the end. XP also runs much faster on my computer.
I also have this computer dual-booting into Ubuntu, but the poor video performance (I mean movies and TV shows) has kept me from migrating full-time. It’s too bad because Ubuntu has the eye candy as well as the performance.
#39 “Last I checked every major virus scanner was available and fully functional under Vista.”
Except the root kit detection is almost non-existent now.
“Well, do you have any proof that Microsoft hasn’t worked with security companies?”
Sure, study the security APIs vs. kernel access under XP.