OS bashing

[Good morning blues]

With Windows 7 coming out soon many people took up the old Vista bashing again saying how they are relieved to get a new OS while other just ignore it and stick to XP. I really fail to see how Vista is so terrible I've been using it for months now and there wasnt a single crash, performance is excellent and overall it runs like a dream. So what is your stance about Vista and people bashing it?

This is because you have a computer that was capable of running it properly. Vista was too taxing on systems that were older or less powerful (which did not stop anyone from selling weak systems with Vista installed, frustrating a hell of a lot of casual users), and wasn't compatible with a lot of peoples' older peripherals.

For people that tend to show up on this site, yeah, Vista is probably an improvement over XP. That doesn't mean that the criticisms that Vista has received aren't valid for millions of people.

 

[axia777]

I am am actually thinking of getting 7. Who knows, it may just be the new one that I like.

 

[YuheJi]

With Windows 7 coming out soon many people took up the old Vista bashing again saying how they are relieved to get a new OS while other just ignore it and stick to XP. I really fail to see how Vista is so terrible I've been using it for months now and there wasnt a single crash, performance is excellent and overall it runs like a dream. So what is your stance about Vista and people bashing it?

Agreed dude, I use vista and I've never had a problem with it. People who bash vista have clearly never used it.

The resource usage killed it for me. I first installed Vista on an older Pentium 4 machine, and I had trouble playing Half-Life 1. Never had any problems when using XP. Obviously if one has a good PC, it doesn't make as big of a difference.

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

Yea, I didn't really understand all the Vista hate.

 

[iggyus]

Well the older games argument isnt really true. I am able on Vista to run games like Deus Ex, Morrowind and Diablo 1 & 2 without any problems or additional patchings. They run way better than on any XP computer I used before

 

[esperandote]

I have vista and a like it even over XP, people that bash vista haven't use it enough (i used to bash it until a got a laptop with it for work) my only complait is that it takes a while to kick in.

 

[I_LIKE_CAKE]

i never really minded, but i migrated after SP1 and never had to deal with the launch problems. With that said, I have been running Windows 7 as my primary OS since the beta, and I refuse to go back to vista, not because i hate vista, but because 7 is so much better.

 

[AbuFace]

Vista's main caveat is that it uses almost double the resources consumed by XP, meaning if you were running on an older machine when it came out, it was not in your interest to upgrade. To a lesser extent, Vista is not fully compatible with a great number of older games, and getting those games to run on Vista, while possible, requires research and knowhow that many people using Vista do not necessarily possess. Vista also has the annoying tendency to ask you whether or not you want to do every little thing. This is magnified by the fact that half the things you don't want it doing will do themselves anyway without ever asking. Add to this the fact that directx10 is limited to Vista for the sole purpose of selling the operating system and you get a lasting stigma that, as is now evident, rode Vista into the ground. Windows 7 would be here right around now anyway, the 'spit and polish OS' is a Microsoft mainstay, which comes right before the 'OS with its heart cut out,' to be released when the Next Big Thing (tm) is released.

To add to what was said here, I skipped Vista as it was a resource hog (it's gotten a lot better now, though) and am currently using the W7 RC. I gotta say, I am very disappointed with the interface of Vista/W7. It's like Microsoft changed a lot of things just for the sake of changing them, not because they needed to be changed.
Why doesn't the W7 Firewall prompt you about blocked things and instead waits for you to create a rule (which is, at a minimum, 20 clicks)?
Why were the folder options moved into the control panel instead of staying with, you know, the folders?
Why do the UI themes and resolution settings have to be two completely different windows, as opposed to different tabs on the same window? On that note, what happened to tabs in windows anywhere? Seeing them has become a rarity.
Why does this OS have quadruple the memory footprint of xp? I realize 64 bit needs more space than 32 bit, but 4x as much? (and no, I'm not talking about superfetch/caching, I'm talking about actual used memory.)
Why does the start menu keep opening up folders on top of itself instead of using the rest of my desktop? Why can't I right-click anything that's in the start menu?
There are other elements of the UI that I dislike (such as the new mouse icons, all the new links and the layout of the folder windows, and the taskbar) but I was able to change a few of them back to how they were in XP. I'm going to use W7 going forward as being able to use all of my RAM and DX10 are nice. Apart from the memory footprint of W7, the performance is actually pretty decent too. I just wish MS would stop changing things that don't need to be changed.

 

[Gitsnik]

Ok I'm going to put down the four reasons I hate vista (as an IT technician rather than a home gamer).

*UAC
*Resources
*Transparency
*Domain Stability

Personally, I get better performance out of server 2008 as a workstation than vista, and that's just the way I like it.

UAC: Annoys me because it annoys my users. Even if I run them under restricted accounts they get this popping up for the stupidest reasons and there seems to be no easy way to deal with it short of turning it off.

Resources: Because I really enjoy upgrading 200+ computers just so that the hardware can support them, and THEN upgrading the software.

Transparency: I don't use it on my FreeBSD box, I don't use it on my Linux systems. If I did on either they would run well, not take a noticeable amount of time to start the screen saver and cause the screen to lock up. UNLIKE A CERTAIN OS I KNOW.

Domain Stability: There is something infinitely stupid about the way vista operates networking wise that (even with the latest patches) has caused a severe amount of grief with logging on and start up scripts. You'd think that after all this time they could at least have gotten that right.

7 looks good though, so far it's held up extremely well under all my tests, and I will probably be using it in the future.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Vista is fine and works for me. I have an intense dislike of people who bash any OS. I also wonder if anyone will continue to stick with XP after Windows 7. How long will XP last, I wonder?

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

With Windows 7 coming out soon many people took up the old Vista bashing again saying how they are relieved to get a new OS while other just ignore it and stick to XP. I really fail to see how Vista is so terrible I've been using it for months now and there wasnt a single crash, performance is excellent and overall it runs like a dream. So what is your stance about Vista and people bashing it?

Its confusing for most people, and a lot of things that would easily run on Xp has trouble (or wont even run) on vista. It took less than 5 minuets to boot DOS to play arena on my Xp. On this Vista computer, it took two damn days of troubleshooting and forum surfing.

 

[j0z]

I don't understand it either. I have had my Vista for over 2 years and foundit to be fine. UAC is annoying, but all you have to do is push one button.
Sure you have to have a decent computer to run it, but shouldn't the gamers and techies already have one?
It wasn't perfect, but I found it to be quite good.
Plus it is pretty looking. So nice and SHINY!

 

[Captain Pancake]

I had no quarrels with vista, my only problem was it took a while longer to download my games.
it actually improved on alot of things, and the aesthetics were a lot more contemporary, such as opaque window rims, non linear interface etc.

 

[Jaygee02]

In my experience a lot of the fuss over vista (among the less technical anyway) was that they thought it was slow, and of course it was, since the idiots at HP/Dell etc just took their slow xp machines and slapped vista on to them, making them twice as slow.

If they were lucky enough to buy a computer that could actually run Vista, they were quite happy.

 

[Jaygee02]

Ok I'm going to put down the four reasons I hate vista (as an IT technician rather than a home gamer).

...

Resources: Because I really enjoy upgrading 200+ computers just so that the hardware can support them, and THEN upgrading the software.

...

7 looks good though, so far it's held up extremely well under all my tests, and I will probably be using it in the future.

While I understand that would be annoying, to be fair if I made a new operating system so long after the last one was released, I'd expect it to be running on newer hardware than they had also.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

ok for why i hate vista

it changed crap around, such as the control panel
it is a resource hog and had piss poor memory management
the stupid UAC, sure you can turn it off but it still didn't make the os any more secure, it just forced people to click "continue"
it's networking stack was the win9X one, xp used the bsd one and it was good
it was still insecure, no matter what they claimed

i wouldn't bash m$ as much as i do if they actually took the time to make quality products. i define quality as something that runs really well on older hardware, has a low memory imprint, good memory management and is secure.

m$ is a multi-billion dollar company and yet a bunch of guys on the internet have made a better operating system and did it without being paid a dime. so what does that really say about the "skills" of the m$ coders?

 

[Jaygee02]

ok for why i hate vista

it changed crap around, such as the control panel
it is a resource hog and had piss poor memory management
the stupid UAC, sure you can turn it off but it still didn't make the os any more secure, it just forced people to click "continue"
it's networking stack was the win9X one, xp used the bsd one and it was good
it was still insecure, no matter what they claimed

i wouldn't bash m$ as much as i do if they actually took the time to make quality products. i define quality as something that runs really well on older hardware, has a low memory imprint, good memory management and is secure.

m$ is a multi-billion dollar company and yet a bunch of guys on the internet have made a better operating system and did it without being paid a dime. so what does that really say about the "skills" of the m$ coders?

Depends how you define better - some would say better = easy to use.

 

[Strategia]

I stuck with XP for a long time, only switched over to Vista a few months back when I got this shiney new laptop I'm using right now (I love my laptop). I've had a couple of crashes of various kinds, I've had the older games not working issue as well, and the constant "This action needs your permission" "Are you sure you want to give your permission?" can get on my nerves if it happens sixteen times in four minutes, but apart from that I like it. I prefer it over XP.

While I usually cover my desktop with immense sedimentary strata of screens for - usually - at least four to six different programmes at a time (and two or three on average per programme) (and yes I'm a stickler for British English spelling), I do appreciate the sidebar a whole lot. The clock is handy, below that is the headline reader, below that are three notes (I have insane resolution) and finally I have the currency converter at the bottom. While, like I said, I don't use it very much, it is in my eyes a very useful addition and while not really a necessary improvement over XP, it is handy to have around.
I'm also a fan of - I know, I know - the visual style. The transparency and "softness" of the screens appeals to me, and since I decked everything out in a dark green tint the overall effect is pleasant.
One more thing I like is how you get a little preview pop-up if you hover the cursor over an item on the taskbar. Like the sidebar, it's not a necessary improvement, but it is handy.
I can't speak for Internet Explorer, since the only site I ever visited with it was the Mozilla site, to install Firefox.
It took a little getting used to the new file explorer address bar thingy, but now I find it very handy, and actually much more useful than the old style. This, in my eyes, IS a necessary improvement.

Of course my view on the subject is inherently biased since my laptop is beefy enough to run it without lag of any kind and run fairly new games (one-two years old, tops) at a respectable graphics level (which isn't really all that useful to me since I mostly play older games ), so I can't speak for the memory hog aspect that's apparently such a mark on its record. Overall, I find Vista to be much more pleasant to use than XP. That said, I think I'll probably stick with Vista until Windows 7 is due to be replaced, like I did with Vista and even XP (I used Win98 for a looong time, my first XP comp was SP2 already), to get the best results and the fewest headaches.

 

[Jawshey]

In my opinion, Windows 7 just seems like what Vista could have been if Microsoft worked on it better.

Still won't give up my Mac for it though, maybe allow it to have some measly partition for it on my hard drive, so I can use it to play the the few games on PC I find enjoyable. =]