HardOCP Spends 30 Days With Vista

boyko.at.netqos writes "Hardocp.com has published "30 days with Vista" — with the same author from "30 days with Linux" doing the evaluation. And he doesn't like it. From the article: 'Based on my personal experiences with Vista over a 30 day period, I found it to be a dangerously unstable operating system, which has caused me to lose data [...] Any consideration of the fine details comes in second to that one inescapable conclusion. This is an unstable operating system.'"

Does Vista do anything right?

[mjmalone]

Is there anything that Vista does right? It's not just that it's more resource intensive, and less stable than XP - it's also less usable. Check out this report [pfeifferreport.com], vista is less intuitive, has higher menu latency, and has more "friction" than XP/OS X. This is not just about the OS being "pretty." For a product that is used every day by millions of people this will substantially impact productivity.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[Ucklak]

One of my biggest gripes is that the popups are too wordy and popups that require an answer aren't intuitively selectable.
Going to green text on a white background for a "Yes, I want to" or "No, I don't" was a bad UI choice.

Re:

[pixelpusher220]

haven't used Vista and won't till my office switches. But...

Is there no ability to set the color scheme used? Perhaps there's a better choice? Granted the one you're using sounds bad as a default selection.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[richdun]

You can change it. Much like I did for 6 years of XP, I'm about to switch my Vista install over to "Windows Classic" but I kinda like the eye candy (20" LCD with a Win2K looking desktop just doesn't justify the $700 I paid a couple years back for the monitor).

The biggest thing I've liked about Vista is a graphical installer (which, admittedly, you should only have to use once), good support for hardware driver updates (not the drivers themselves, necessarily, just going to find updates), etc. Of course, I've been using OSX as my primary machine for almost three years, so I got used to those things while using XP only to play WoW with a much better graphics card than my PB G4.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[ncc74656]

I'm about to switch my Vista install over to "Windows Classic" but I kinda like the eye candy (20" LCD with a Win2K looking desktop just doesn't justify the $700 I paid a couple years back for the monitor).

The first thing I do with a fresh WinXP install is shut off that gawdawful Luna (?) desktop and revert to something that looks more like Win2K. Less space used by UI widgets means more space for program data, and it doesn't look so cartoonish.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[multisync]

Same here. And the very next thing I do is change Explorer to not hide file extensions and display hidden/system files and - most importantly - I run a registry hack that turns off all those annoying pop-ups Windows likes to throw at users every few seconds.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[ultracool]

And after that, I format my hard drive and install Linux.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[multisync]

Would you be willing to post the registry hack, or a link to it?

This isn't mine, just something I found with a Google search:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000

I carry it on a USB stick, so I can run it whenever I use someone else's machine. I don't know how people use Windows with all those pop-ups (kind of like browsing the web with IE6, I suppose).

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[ScrewMaster]

The TweakXP PowerToy, free from Microsoft, can make the same hack for you.

Re:

[dbIII]

It's good to see that MS Windows is so simple :)

Re:

[IchBinEinPenguin]

Luna?

I always though it was based on this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/teletubbies/ [bbc.co.uk]
Over the hills, and far away....

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[Torvaun]

Searches. Windows Vista beats the pants off my Windows XP with Google Desktop. IPv6 is fully integrated. They killed off a bunch of backwards compatibility, which has hosed some older programs. The interface is nice, but not necessary. Stack protection.

Don't forget that we're comparing the recently released Vista to XP, which has been out for years. Of course XP is going to be winning popularity contests right now. Same thing would have happened when XP was released if it wasn't following up ME. I've worked with people who want to keep their Windows 98 machines, for crying out loud. But very few people move backward from a mature OS. There may still be people who like Windows 98, but there aren't people who use Windows XP, and say "Gee, I wish I was using 98 instead." So shall it be with Vista when it matures.

Searches

[Mateo_LeFou]

I'm quoting this article a lot today...

"WinFS, advertised as a way to make searching work by making the file system be a relational database, ignores the fact that the real way to make searching work is by making searching work. Don't make me type metadata for all my files that I can search using a query language. Just do me a favor and search the damned hard drive, quickly, for the string I typed, using full-text indexes and other technologies that were boring in 1973."

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html [joelonsoftware.com]

Re:Searches

[Mateo_LeFou]

I'm quoting it b/c joel rightly points out that having the contents of a drive be quickly searchable is not something incredibly revolutionary requiring 2GB of RAM and an expensive 3D video accelerator card. It comes naturally from good index design.

Since search was posited as a big thing that Vista does right, I'm expressing my non-impressedness. Nothing to do with WinFS.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[UncleTogie]

Searches. Windows Vista beats the pants off my Windows XP with Google Desktop.

I've never found a use for the indexing and search functions that people are happily touting with Vista, Google Desktop, and others... Instead, I use a logical directory naming convention that makes looking for what I need a simple matter of choosing the directory that has what I need.

Re:

[UncleTogie]

Why do you think Gmail works?

My first guess would be "good design and coding", but it appears I was wrong; you appear to be telling us it works because of a nebulous philosophy of "search instead of arrange logically."

It is based on the philosophy that it is easier to search a large group than to organize it along the way. (Of course, it IS being organized along the way, just not by the user.)

The day that a computer can organize my documents and email better than I can is the day I quit the IT field. I'm not saying you shouldn't trust a PC to do that, but I'm fairly well convinced that at current, a human can do it better.

While I might like my desk organized, if someone ELSE organizes it FOR me the

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[rainer_d]

> At the very least, MS should've waited until
> NVidia & ATI had their drivers polished

Rest assured that that (i.e. user-experience after the user has bought it) was very low on the list.
With enough cynism, your posting could be marked as "funny".

Licensing 6.0 was all what was driving the release-date.
A lot of businesses signed the Licensing 6.0 agreement back in ... oh wait, 2002/2003, under the assumption that the "next windows" was just around the corner and they would somehow be left behind if they couldn't have it cheaply (I've seen it first-hand).
Those contracts ran... 3 years, which brings us to X-mas 2006, when Vista was released to OEMs and large-accounts, so that all the CIOs who signed those contracts didn't look like complete fools to their beancounters, who are still using the same desktop and the same MS-Office they have used for three years.

Re:

[codemachine]

That was my first impression of XP as well, or at least some of what you describe applies.

Of course it isn't quite as bad now that I know how to turn off all the useless crap that supposedly made XP better. By the time that most power users are done tweaking XP, it isn't that far off of Win2K anymore, which by the way, I think you'd like a heck of a lot better than XP.

The one (only) place I have liked XP more than '98/2K/Linux has been on laptops. Part of that is because the vendor has a lot of Windows sp

What is "intuitive" anyway?

[mungtor]

Is something merely intuitive if things are where you expect them to be? If so, then intuitive is simply a synonym for "familiar" and progress stops in the name of keeping things "intuitive". There has to be some measure of usability that takes out the abstract human factor of previous experience. Has a test ever been done where you take 2 computer illiterate people and give them a task to determine which can figure it out faster?

I think a better measure of the effectiveness of the UI would be that given 2-3 weeks to familiarize yourself with the interface, can you perform the same tasks you used to in less time. ie, is it efficient once you overcome the learning curve?

(On a tangent, I think the Gnome dev team has been wrestling with this problem. Trying to follow a design process which they believe is more efficient once you commit to using in the way they intended instead of allowing rampant customization. Obviously, that attitude doesn't work for everybody.)

Re:

[Xymor]

You're all expecting too much from Vista, mostly because you're not familiar with Microsoft's naming standards.
Here's a little Microsoft -> Programmer list of terms I compiled:

alpha = non-existant
beta = alpha
Full Retail edition = beta
SP1 = Full Retail edition

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[drinkypoo]

Does it require moderately high end hardware? Yes. Windows 95 was considered resource intensive for a 386 with 4 megs of ram when it came out in 1995. Who cares?

The reason this is a nonsensical argument is that windows vista does not provide any features substantially in advance of windows xp. Windows 95 does DRAMATICALLY more than Windows 3.1.

In fact, Microsoft claimed that Windows Vista would be the fastest windows yet. But in spite of its limited improvements in functionality - which are almost all supposedly speed-related - it is dramatically slower.

If you install Windows XP on a system that formerly had Windows 2000, the only setback in terms of performance is the stupid fisher-price GUI (which can be turned off) and the fact that it consumes more memory. Programs in fact often DO run faster on XP than on 2k. This is not true of Vista, which also substantially breaks backwards compatibility in the bargain. Everything is slower on Vista.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[3choTh1s]

Really? Cause I haven't seen anything of the sort of everything is slower. In fact everything that isn't related to a single program doing hardcore processing is faster. Searching is way faster, cutting losses from failed network events is faster, and most importantly for me, when you are heavily taxing ram/virtual ram each window respond faster(as if you weren't doing heavy duty work). But if you aren't talking about individual programs being slower, then yes some programs are slower to do cpu intensive tasks. Not by too much... at least for me. I'll take the other improvements any day as trade for a few frames per second on my video encode. It just feels better to me. But then again I gave it a chance before dismissing it outright.

Re:

[mysticgoat]

So to be brief about it, Vista is good for people who want to learn to do more multitasking, because the interface so easily supports jumping from one application to another, while the increased slowness of each single application encourages the user to make those jumps. You can probably easily work on three or four different projects at once, AND keep up on Slashdot, since you will no longer be able to focus all your attention on any one thing, like those cavemen of 1960s who put a man on the Moon.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[drinkypoo]

He's saying that the user interface is more responsive, and multitasking is better, at the cost of slower performance when running only one resource-intensive application, and he's saying that he thinks this is a good tradeoff.

The problem with his interpretation (and yours) is that most of the time when a desktop system is being used at 100%, it's being used that way by a single application. Rendering an image, playing a game, something like that. So the assertion is basically that Vista, which is not a server OS, is only slower when you need the speed the most.

You can make any kind of declarations you want if you forget the way the system will be used. This is precisely Microsoft's game and I am dismayed to see so many slashdotters joining in. It reminds me of Sony's PS2 specifications. Not only could the system not push as many triangles as they said it could, but it definitely couldn't do it during a game.

Not only is Vista not able to be secure or stable, but it can't deliver superior performance either.

Re:

[e4g4]

I couldn't agree more. One of the fundamental precepts in designing an operating system is that the speed of interactive tasks directly effects the perceived speed of a system. To paraphrase an old professor of mine, if you perform a task that you intuitively believe should happen instantaneously and it doesn't complete within half a second or so(like, for example, opening a menu), you will perceive the system to be slower; the impact from a task that you intuitively believe should take a minute (like enc

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[Skuld-Chan]

I don't think this is true actually - in a lot of ways Vista is quicker. For instance when I turned on my Vista machine today it was ready to go in literally seconds.

Low priority I/O makes it so a lot of tasks like backup, indexing and optimizing the disk can be done in the background with little to no impact to foreground apps.

As far as application performance, you can dumb down vista's ui, but even with Aero on I really honestly don't notice any performance difference between Vista and XP.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[malfunct]

One place where Vista is dramtically faster than XP is repainting invalidated areas of a window (areas that were covered by another app and now are visible). This is a result of the DWM and hardware compositing. Apps get called to repaint less often as a result and while this might not be a measurable speed boost in normal cases it does mean that apps which are busy doing other work will not have the normal windows crap on them while they wait for a repaint because they won't need to.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[EMB Numbers]

More to the point, NeXTstep (the basis/predecessor of Mac OS X) used this technique in 1988. Having to page in background applications just so that they could repaint their windows after being revealed only to be immediately paged back out again was stupid in Windows 3.1 back in 1991.

Here is a quote from 1998 abou this issue:
"Use buffered or retained mode windows. Users will perceive better performance than non-retained windows.
This will also improve virtual memory performance. When a non retained window is uncovered, the application that owns it must be swapped into memory in order to redraw the window. If there are many applications running but idle and there are many overlapping windows, this can become a serious performance hit. Retained and buffered windows have a "backing store" owned by the window server. The window server can then draw the uncovered window without any help from the window's owning application.

As a cool example of this, use a Windows 95 or Windows NT machine with relatively low RAM and run Microsoft Word and some other application like Corel Draw. Open many documents in both applications. Maximize both applications. Then minimize the application that is on top. You can wait minutes while the virtual memory system thrashes the hard disk while repainting all of those windows, and all you did was minimize an application!"

It only took Microsoft 15 years to catch up.

Re:

[RobertM1968]

I don't think this is true actually - in a lot of ways Vista is quicker. For instance when I turned on my Vista machine today it was ready to go in literally seconds.

You didnt TURN ON your Vista machine today - not in the normal sense... you had it resume from something akin to hibernation (S3/S4, hibernate, etc). A feature (that's old) that has problems on various systems, while oddly working flawlessly on others. Next time, select "Turn Off" from the menu and then restart... it is excruciatingly slow o

Re:

[malfunct]

If you have less than 2gb of ram and don't use ReadyBoost I have found that Vista is heavily bottlenecked paging to the disk. Pop in a readyboost qualified usb flash drive and you will see a near instant and dramatic increase in responsiveness in almost every aspect of the OS. Does this mean that Vista memory management needs to be tweaked? Maybe.

Re:

[dbIII]

Windows 95 does DRAMATICALLY more than Windows 3.1.

I took a look at the Win95 effort to make MSDOS look pretty and then installed linux - initially because I was too cheap to install OS/2 or buy a Mac. Win95 was a great steaming pile of garbage. NT, Win2k and Server2003 are a completely different story. XP is too resource hungry for my liking with no benefit over Win2k if you have drivers for both (it's very rare not to have drivers for both).

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[jojoba_oil]

The Aero interface is very fast on well supported hardware.

Isn't that true of just about anything?

Re:

[coop247]

What do you mean by resource intensive?

He means it sucks down RAM like its going out of style. I just got a new PC (Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, Good video card, Striped RAID 0) and with absolutely nothing running Vista Business sucked up 35-40% of my RAM. Thats sitting still, doing nothing, with nothing running.

must have had some lousy video drivers

All drivers for Vista are lousy. They have serious memory leak issues, and when they start to have problems Vista disables them. I gave it a few weeks (and many d

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[poot_rootbeer]

with absolutely nothing running Vista Business sucked up 35-40% of my RAM. Thats sitting still, doing nothing, with nothing running.

If the machine is sitting still and doing nothing, it shouldn't matter if the OS uses 100% of available memory, maybe for pre-caching the next chunks of data it think you'll ask for, or running a background index process against your filesystem.

The issue is when you start to add application load to the machine -- does the OS release memory it's using for those "idle" tasks so that apps can use it, or is it greedy?

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[MogNuts]

I was just reading some of the posts here. Infuriating. You know what I realized? Most of the people on Slashdot (who post anyway) may seem knowledgeable about computers and smart, but are not. Most are computer newbies. When a bunch of people bitch that Vista shows its using all their RAM... Wow... (hint: caching). Don't listen to most of the stuff on this post because the people think they know what they are talking about, but they really don't. And guaranteed I'll be modded down...

I just bough a brand new computer. I'm impressed. Vista works pretty flawlessly. Here is to denounce the FUD:

1) All my old programs work without a hitch
2) I *rarely* get a UAC prompt. If I do, it's pretty much for admin-only things anyway (which is the correct way to handle elevating privelages) like installing software or using the control panel. Lest you forget you also must be root to install packages with Yum or Apt. There is no prompt for using the calender or other BS like getting UAC prompts willy-nilly
3) It's not slow
4) Games work fine. I have an ATI x1300 and it plays the games fine

The only thing which is a pain is Vista's file manager. Even though there is an option to set all folders to use the same settings and view as the current directory, it doesn't do what it's told. Therefore, you will always be in one directory--say, with the details view, and the next directory is the tile view. A real big pain and more annoying than you think if you frequently manage files.

Btw, don't give me any BS about how "sure it works fine because you bought Vista pre-installed." Every computer from now on will be pre-installed so your issue is moot AND my computer is using the same damn drivers one would find by downloading them off their respective vendor's sites (and thereby installed by the oh-so-difficult clicking of next > next > finish).

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[SilentUrbanFox]

2) I *rarely* get a UAC prompt. If I do, it's pretty much for admin-only things anyway (which is the correct way to handle elevating privelages) like installing software or using the control panel. Lest you forget you also must be root to install packages with Yum or Apt. There is no prompt for using the calender or other BS like getting UAC prompts willy-nilly

The problem is people always have been used to running as admin or equiv ANYWAY. So a sudden difference bothers them. Also it fairly blindly assumes that you need admin for any installer, which is not true.

3) It's not slow

It is compared to WinXP on similar hardware.

4) Games work fine. I have an ATI x1300 and it plays the games fine

Vista sucks for gaming if you have better things to do than buy a highend system. I've had no real pressing reason to upgrade my desktop, particularly in the "gaming" direction. But even fairly recent games run playably in WinXP on my aging desktop with an AMD Athlon XP 1700+, 512 MB PC133 RAM, and a GeForce FX5200 128MB PCI. On Vista this was decidedly not the case, Empire Earth 2 ran pitifully, whereas I could actually play and enjoy it on WinXP.

I agree there's a huge FUD machine pounding on Vista, but a lot of it is the same kind of Linux FUD I see spread... isolated, very real gripes by a small but noisy population blown out of proportion into generalities. It happens with introducing any new tech, this is hardly shocking.

Re:

[wall0159]

"downloading them off their respective vendor's sites" ...And how's my grandma supposed to do that?? Drivers from a website?? oh God.. I dunno... I just don't think Windows is quite ready for the desktop... maybe next year..

(sorry - I couldn't resist. Good post tho)

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[jank1887]

um... no.

an OS for the masses would make it completely transparent to the user what is being done with memory. The user 'from the masses' doesn't care what's being used for what. As long as things run responsively and quickly, it's a win. There is Zero need for a up front and obvious to the average PC user exactly where each byte of ram is going. All they need is a "hey, you're trying to do a bit too much all at once" message when they get close to running out of overhead. Maybe show a pie chart with app.name (NOT the process name/number) and percent of mem used, and give them the chance to close down something BEFORE the system grinds to an unresponsive halt.

Re:Does Vista do anything right?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

That's a popular thing to say. But if no applications are running, what the hell is the OS loading into the RAM that's taking up that space? It should NOT use as much memory as possible, rather, it should use as much memory as necessary.

Okay you boot up some generic desktop OS and the OS has loaded and is functional. Would you rather it:

• sit idle and do nothing wasting the unused RAM
• pre-load applications and documents you commonly open so that if you do open them they load more quickly and if you don't you've lost nothing

Re:

[radtea]

The Aero interface is very fast on well supported hardware.

That is to say, Vista imposes a large and pointless cost on the vast majority of users for the purchase of "well supported hardware".

Vista is not worth it.

[jbn-o]

That's quite a heavy qualification when ordinary users buying a brand new computer will expect the OS that comes with it to run at least as quickly as their previous computer did running Microsoft Windows XP. By all the standards thrown in the face of free software activists (all the while ignoring software freedom), Vista simply isn't worth it. These users won't know or care what "well supported hardware" is, they'll make the logical assumption that whatever they were sold should be "well supported".

On a

The editor undermines the entire piece

[g051051]

Nice editor's note at the very end that says "Well, it's just this one guy's opinion, obviously Vista isn't unfit for any user like he thinks after EXTENDED REAL-LIFE TESTING. I'm not trying to appease our Masters in Redmond, really."

How about . . .

[pembo13]

only people who have actually used Vista comment. These articles about operating systems are already boring enough without the same boring comments. At the very least I would like a few +5 funny comments.

It doesn't matter

[xzvf]

Even if Vista is the gold standard of operating systems, I use Linux and FOSS because once it's on my computer I own it. The data is mine, what I do with it (on my personal system) is mine. I don't have to ask permission from Apple or Microsoft to boot. It's my computer, my software, my content.

Instability?

[KermodeBear]

I have had Vista running on a machine for about a month and I haven't run into a single issue yet. I hear horror stories (mostly on Slashdot), and I can't claim that they're false, but it does make me wonder what other people are doing that I am not (or what I am doing that OTHERS are not). Maybe the user is unstable, or perhaps there are driver issues.

Re:

[ivan256]

The only issue I've run into is the compatibility. There are simply too few applications and devices supported. I haven't had stability issues, but I'd still recommend people wait a year before taking the Vista plunge unless they are buying an OEM machine and new peripherals, and you don't run anything but mainstream apps.

Re:

[cliffski]

Same here, my PC has some sleep/hibernate problems, but I havent really investigated them because startup / shutdown is so fast. The disk thrashed till i turned off indexing, but apart from that vista feels responsive, very user-friendly, and hasn't crashed or hung once.
And even using the 'dodgy' nvidia 8800 drivers hasnt caused me any issues. Games run fast and fluid, and I haven't encountered any app with major compatibility problems.

Yes, Instability!!!!!

[fm6]

The biggest instability issue is that spontaneous rebooting. Since this guy had it on two different computers running the same applications, it's probably an application issue.

And if it is, Vista is absolutely, unacceptably unstable. It should simply not be possible for an application to cause a spontaneous reboot without prompting the user. And in that context, your more positive experience is pretty meaningless: you don't have any applications that cause this problem now. But Murphy's Law says that you wi

Not so for me

[mobby_6kl]

Didn't have Vista crash (at all) during the last 30, or slightly more, days in Vista. So, no data loss. Burned DVDs just fine. Most hardware worked fine too, just had to use drivers other than the latest version for my Zen. Now, it's possible that some drivers didn't work with Vista so I can't comment on that, but otherwise it looks like this guy's just upset that he didn't get his check (or is it a laptop now?).

My experience

[blackmonday]

I evaluated Vista on a mild machine - Dual Core Pentium D, Intel 950 graphics, 1 GB memory. Surprisingly, 50% of my system memory was being used by Windows and Aero. That was pretty much all I needed to know that I was sticking with XP for a little while longer.

Re:My experience

[0racle]

Windows will use what it can until something else needs it. Unused Ram is wasted ram.

Re:My experience

[romonster]

Perhaps your experience with much of the system memory being used is due to SuperFetch. See the article below for more information. Bottom line, however, is a.) Vista may be using your system more efficiently and b.) if you don't like SuperFetch, it's easy enough to turn off.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.h tml [codinghorror.com]

I don't like Vista....

[8127972]

.... But to say that it is "dangerously unstable" seems a bit much. Perhaps this guy had hardware issues that were responsible for the OS being unstable?

Yawn

[VividU]

Go back and you'll see the exact same comments when Windows 2000 came out, when Windows XP was released, when the first Xbox was released and when the Xbox 360 was released.

Re:

[Pausanias]

If there weren't comments like this for Vista, that would imply it is a better operating system. If there are as many comments like this for Vista as there were for XP, then that would imply that Vista is as good. If there are many, many, many more comments like this for Vista than there were for XP or 2000, then that implies that Vista is a far, far, far worse operating system.

Because Microsoft released all of them too soon.

[dpbsmith]

I don't know how we can get out of the vicious circle of declining expectations.

I know nobody believes it, but there was a time when beta versions were called betas, and Version 1.0 meant a product that was finally finished, SQA-ed, and working.

Users have a right to a version 1.0 that works. Shrugging your shoulders and saying "hey, what do you expect, it's version 1.0" wouldn't be tolerable in any other product.

It's the Drivers...

[georgep77]

My experience has been that the 64bit version was dead stable (not a single hiccup) and once I got a non-nvidia sound driver so was the 32bit version. Before I downloaded a "generic" C-Media sound driver the nvidia one crashed at least every 20 minutes and had me very close to re-imaging my disk back to the 64bit version. My only gripe is that I cannot mount my EXT3 volumes from within Vista (was doing this in XP with the extIFS driver).

Windows update still tells me that they have an updated sound driver

My Vistaring

[Spad]

I had Vista installed on my PC at work for about a month, but in the end I had to go back to XP. It wasn't a performance issue - the PC wouldn't do Aero but it ran pretty well even with the default Vista interface - it wasn't even UAC (which was switched off on day one). The biggest problem I had by far was that nothing would run: Exchange 2003 tools won't install. The Landesk Management console won't install. The ELM management console won't install. NT User/Computer manager won't run (Yes, I know). Even our call logging software (Sunrise) had serious install issues that could only be resolved by installing it as a Domain Admin. Put bluntly, it got to the point where I couldn't do my job properly because none of the tools I use on a daily basis would install or run under Vista.

Now, some of this is down to the software manufacturers for not being on the ball, some of it is due to things like MS moving all the IIS stuff so that older apps can no longer find it. Not to mention the fact that the Exchange 2003 tools are a Microsoft Product and they're not intending to provide an installation method under Vista *at all*. Even the Exchange 2007 tools have been looking a bit flaky where Vista is concerned.

Vista! 80% as good as the next guy!

[Wylfing]

I haven't used Vista at all yet, but for the sake of argument I will assume that this review is a good indication of Vista's quality: a bit less good than XP. Now I have used XP, extensively, and I have used Linux extensively, and in my judgment the quality of a distribution like Fedora or Ubuntu is about on par with the quality of XP. You get roughly the same number of annoyances, the same amount of flaky behavior, and the same number of breakages, some of which you can fix and some of which you can't.

With Vista, apparently I need to knock it down 10% or so from XP in terms of its quality. Plus (and this is a big one) it actively works against the user with intentional breakages. DVD burning tools that produce discs only readable on Vista? Come again? IE7 objects to downloads from Sourceforge? Nice. So I'll take off another 10% for these shenanigans. That means Vista is about 80% as good as Ubuntu.

Where did the billions of dollars and years of development go? Why can't Redmond put out an OS that is at least as good as the freebie alternative? They should be selling an OS that is dramatically better than anything else available. Why aren't they?

Why only 30 days?

[goodenoughnickname]

Could he not find an activation crack or something?

Not to pile on, but...

[LibertineR]

At this very moment, my primary workstation is in the middle of a Spinrite recovery cycle, because Vista keeps corrupting my SATA Raid, and cause it to disapear.

This computer dual boots XP, where this never happens. The RAID driver is exactly the same on both OS's so I blame Vista.

Re:Not to pile on, but...

[Dunbal]

because Vista keeps corrupting my SATA Raid, and cause it to disapear.

      This anti-piracy measure is a feature, friend. Surely only copyright infringers have large hard drives!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

this is the fault of the drive manufacturer.

http://www.flyingnerd.com/intel-raid-problem-under -windows-vista/ [flyingnerd.com]

Specifically, Vista does power management for desktop drives. This is good. XP did not. Unfortunately the drives are buggy and don't support it properly. You can disable it

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/28/dell_vista _raid/ [theregister.co.uk]

DVD compatibility problems?

[yuna49]

For me, the most striking feature of his review concerned burning DVDs. He claimed that Vista uses a new file format for DVDs that isn't backward compatible with earlier Windows versions, not to mention being incompatible with Linux, Mac, etc. I'm puzzled about why I haven't heard more about this problem if it's real. For those of you running Vista, have you had problems writing data DVDs that work with non-Vista systems? Did you have to choose specifically to use the traditional format when burning the DVD? Is it really non-obvious how to make the traditional format the default as he suggests?

This seems like a show-stopper to me for anyone wanting to exchange data with non-Vista users, especially if the default is to use the Vista-only format. The fact that I haven't heard this complaint before makes me suspicious that it's something unique to his setup, but not being a Windows user I have no basis to judge.

Re:DVD compatibility problems?

[crabpeople]

"This seems like a show-stopper to me for anyone wanting to exchange data with non-Vista users, especially if the default is to use the Vista-only format."

I have experienced this. I believe what he is talking about is an "open session" dvd/cd. YES it is the default choice when you burn a CD only they call it "Live File System". Actually you have to select a little "advanced" options dropdown or it will burn without telling you about that. If you click advanced, it shows a screen that says it will be incompatable with anything before windows xp.

I always click advanced options on things but your right, most people wouldn't.

Beware latest XP updates

[jgoemat]

Ever since I installed them, I've been getting Blue Screens Of Death multiple times per day on both my work computer and my laptop computer. It could be something with the SQL Server 2005 update or the "critical" vulnerability fix, I don't know. It was always stop 0x00000050, with the third number 0x89E773DE. I would think my memory was going bad or that it was a driver issue, but the only change on my computers was installing those updates, and it has happened on both consistently. It doesn't matter what I'm doing on the computers, it usually happens when I'm away from them. A friend of mine had just started getting BSODs too and hadn't made the connection, but he just performed the updates before it started happening also...

Re:

[Nimey]

Do you have a Realtek sound chip? They don't like the .ani patch.

Windows Vista for me...

[infiniphonic]

has been no trouble at all. I have been running it on an older Toshiba A10-S169 laptop. It installed all drivers without the slightest problem. Out of a gig, it runs with about 350 to 400 megs of ram used by the OS. Some old software has not worked at all and some has worked flawlessly. I run it in basic due to integrated 3 year old crappy graphics. It has locked up a few times. It has not totally crashed once. It seems to come back from errors much quicker than XP ever has. It works very well for a new OS. I can not say the same for XP in it's first six months. I might start recomending it to friends and customers soon. I have yet to encounter the DRM boogyman. I am using it to type this post. If you haven't tried it yet, don't discount it because you really don't know what you are talking about. Some problems are bound to occur with some hardware this early in it's life. Thats how it is with something new. Not everything in the world will work perfectly, but many problems that people are having now will be worked out in the next year. It's probably not for everyone and thats OK. My Vista rant.

Re:

[mewsenews]

It has locked up a few times.

unacceptable

Re:

[svendsen]

you must be new here....

Re:

[Kohath]

So he's telling everyone about his experiences so we can judge whether we want to try Vista or not based partly on that information.

Re:

[Seumas]

What I've been trying to figure out is why anyone would use a Windows operating system in the first year of release to begin with? Yes, sometimes you have no choice but to use Windows. Especially if you're a gamer. But that doesn't mean you need to use the newest release. There have been fourteen or fifteen major Microsoft Windows releases and we haven't learned by now that it's unwise to step into the newest version within the first year - or even two years sometimes?

It takes time for software to catch up

Re:

[svendsen]

Any software or hardware in its 1st release will have issues. Can you name me something that in its 1st release was perfect? As for the data I agree if you are going to try a 1st rev of something back up your data. THis logic applies to any OS. I've had friends go from OSX 10.2 to 10.3 and hose their system and lose their data. Ask them where the backups are and you get the blank stare.... Nothing perfect...plan for the worst

Re:Some random guy doesn't like Vista

[poot_rootbeer]

Any software or hardware in its 1st release will have issues

Vista is not a first-release product, though. It is Windows NT Version 6.0.

After 15+ years of development, I would hope that the issues that surface with each new release would be relatively few and mild, even for major revisions like Vista.

Re:Some random guy doesn't like Vista

[drinkypoo]

The "so what" is that this is a quantified test. The methodology and happenings are described in detail. This is not a case of "some random guy doesn't like Vista". this is a case of "some guy who has been known to do this kind of test in the past has found that vista is unreliable, slow, and ineffective on mainstream hardware which is known good." Your misinterpretation of the situation suggests that you are, in fact, simply flamebaiting since that level of misdirection can only be deliberate.

Self contradictory

[ivan256]

this is a moderately common problem [...] The arguments against MS for making unstable operating systems ended when NT was released. Since Windows 2000, MS has made stable operating systems that really are usable by the average joe without difficulty.

Which is it? Vista commonly crashing because of unstable drivers or the OS being stable and usable? It can't be both.

(Yes, I run Vista, and no it has never crashed on me... I have the minimum featureset enabled though.)

Re:

[misleb]

The driver is part of the hardware, so I count BSODs due to driver issues in the same bucket as "faulty hardware." (Making exceptions for drivers that ship with the OS, of course.) Since drivers are going to be required with every modern OS, you really can't count some seedy driver from Taiwan crashing against Microsoft-- especially when Microsoft makes every effort to get companies to thoroughly test and digitally sign drivers.

You can hold it against "Windows" when there are alternatives like OS X where

Re:

[drinkypoo]

The driver is part of the hardware, so I count BSODs due to driver issues in the same bucket as "faulty hardware." (Making exceptions for drivers that ship with the OS, of course.)

So when the same driver that has been shipped to customers gets bundled with the OS, it goes from a driver problem to a software problem?

I call shenanigans.

Re:Yeah whatever

[alcmaeon]

"Btw, chances are it was a sound card driver - this is a moderately common problem, but it sure isn't the end of the world."

I agree, no one needs sound on a computer. That's why we have iPods.

Re:Yeah whatever

[moo083]

I have noticed that Windows fans' excuse for crashing on other people's systems is something along the lines of "Jeez, they must be stupid if they couldn't figure out what was causing their problem". I don't understand how that response is helpful or accurate. If you need to be that smart to use the OS, something is wrong. You said it is probably the sound card driver. Sure, not the end of the world, but how would Joe Shmoe know that? I sure didn't. And here is is, 5 or 6 years after XP is out, and I tried to plug a second monitor into my brand new Dimension E520 at work and the OS crashed when I told it I wanted the second monitor extending my first. Not even a BSOD. Just restarted with no warning. Is that what XP is supposed to do or do I just not know how to use it? I think you need to rethink your response and figure out that something about what you said is incorrect. Or am I just stupid too?

Re:Yeah whatever

[Blakey Rat]

The default in XP is to reboot and log the error in the Event Viewer when you get a BSOD instead of actually showing you the BSOD. Microsoft realized that since maybe 1/10,000 people actually can act on the BSOD data that shows, there's really no reason to show it to everybody else.

There's a checkbox to turn that feature off, if you want to see BSODs, in the System control panel I believe. Or just check your Event Viewer when you have a mysterious reboot.

Re:Yeah whatever

[Mr. Underbridge]

If you need to be that smart to use the OS, something is wrong.

More to the point, if you need to be that smart to use the OS, wouldn't you rather use an OS that puts those smarts to use through powerful tools like shell scripting, built-in command-line accessible compilers, and more? I thought the whole point of using Windows was that anyone can use it. Tell somebody's grandma that she should debug her drivers, you know?

Re:

[nine-times]

I have noticed that Windows fans' excuse for crashing on other people's systems is something along the lines of "Jeez, they must be stupid if they couldn't figure out what was causing their problem". I don't understand how that response is helpful or accurate. If you need to be that smart to use the OS, something is wrong. You said it is probably the sound card driver.

Besides any talk about how you figure out it's the sound card driver, I think there's something wrong with the attitude that, "Windows is co

Re:Yeah whatever

[zappepcs]

You know what, in your support for MS Vista you have inadvertently supported my thoughts on Linux. Yes, it's stable too and several distributions can be installed by general users. No complete neophyte will be able to fully install any OS, that is why computers come with the OS pre-installed.

There are a few driver issues with all OS software!

Now, since they are more or less equal, why use the one that cost you big money? Why use the OS that wants to report what you do and prevent you from playing your content?

Yes, I'm saying that if Dell and others shipped computers with some version of Linux pre-installed, it would be a very short time before everyone (nearly) was asking themselves why they should spend big dollars on MS software... assuming we get around/over the MS Tax. That is a problem that probably needs some investigation, perhaps legislative action.

Re:Yeah whatever

[rucs_hack]

It's habit for most people to complain about windows.

I usually find that people who bitch about it use it exclusively. They mostly don't even understand just how complex a job it is that operating systems have to do.

Me? I use Linux most of the time, and have XP for games and other trivial stuff (if games are trivial). Linux is far ahead in the server arena, an pure number cruncher stakes (which is what I use it for), but still behind in the home user experience. Unfashionable as that statement is, its true. Yes there are all the pieces, but how many versions of Linux are there? Is the Linux Standard Base adopted across the board yet? Nope? Well stop whining, Linux isn't ready for the the mainstream desktop. It needs to standardise.

I don't plan to buy Vista, simply because it does nothing I need.
That hasn't stopped me saying some people I know should quit bitching and buy it. After all, since they use Microsoft stuff anyway, they might as well get the next incarnation.

Re:

[codemachine]

Honestly, I just found XP to be the most annoying and "in the way" OS out there. Linux may take a bit of work to get going on occassion, but it stays out of your way when you want to do work. OS X is braindead easy to get going and doesn't annoy the piss out of you by default either. No need to turn off all sorts of "features" to keep sane.

That said, a customized XP is also a useable desktop, especially given all the FOSS software out there that runs on Windows. It may not be my favorite choise of OS, b

Re:

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well stop whining, Linux isn't ready for the the mainstream desktop. It needs to standardise.

Windows isn't, either. How many different versions of Vista are there? And that's just Vista.

Look, if you have a real complaint about "Linux", either direct it at the kernel (and know what you're talking about) or direct it at a specific distro.

Otherwise, stop whining that you have *gasp* too much choice! If you really feel that way, get a Mac -- that way, you won't even be burdened with choice in hardware.

And i

Re:

[CF4L]

I work as a usability consultant. Your post is the epitome of someone who is a computer apologist. You may feel overcoming difficulty with something that is not intended to be difficult, but the vast majority of Average Joe's are not apologists, they are survivors.

Re:

[maxume]

I'm a ridiculous jargon consultant. You guys are doing great.

Re:Yeah whatever

[lawpoop]

"I've been running the 64-bit version of Vista since it was released and it hasn't crashed on me once."

"I'm not having problems; therefore, nobody else could be having any, either."

" This guy couldn't figure out which driver/piece of hardware was causing this instability in a MONTH?"

He was using it as a common user with OEM hardware. You're telling me that Joe Six-pack can troubleshoot a driver problem in any timeframe? Remember, MS is marketing this as a retail, for-the-masses OS. The review chose to review the machine as a typical end-user.

"Btw, chances are it was a sound card driver - this is a moderately common problem, but it sure isn't the end of the world."

So now you admit sound card drivers are a common problem? You're right, it's not the end of the world, but the reviewer did claim it was the end for a lot of his data -- which goes against the whole reason to use a computer in the first place -- to store your data.

"This isn't 1994 anymore. The arguments against MS for making unstable operating systems ended when NT was released. Since Windows 2000, MS has made stable operating systems that really are usable by the average joe without difficulty."

Except for the fact of this relatively common sound card driver bug causing crashes. You have openly admitted as much yourself. Sounds like 1994 all over again.

Re:

[dedazo]

"I'm not having problems; therefore, nobody else could be having any, either."

Amusingly enough that's an often-used retort to people who claim Linux is not working for them for whatever reasons. But I guess here it's perfectly valid, right?

Re:Yeah whatever

[Abcd1234]

That was a little clumsy. The least you could have done was tangentially address his point, first, before erecting and triumphantly knocking down your strawman.

Re:Yeah whatever

[lawpoop]

"Your trite response misses the point - I'm providing anecdotal evidence to refute the anecdotal story presented by the author of the article that is the subject of this slashdot discussion. Don't you think you should be directing these comments towards the article, and not me?"

No. I should be directing these comments to you, because you are making logic errors in your argument.

The fact that you haven't had a crash doesn't 'refute' the author's experience. He had crashes, you didn't. These anecdotal pieces of evidence don't wipe each other out. Was the author lying to us, or making up his crash stories, simply because you never had a crash? No, that's silly. He had a bad experience with Vista, you didn't. Your story doesn't make him wrong, any more than his would make yours wrong. Only if he were lying or misrepresenting would that make his story wrong.

"Why don't you name me a single OS that won't become unstable with faulty drivers. "

Irrelevant. What we are talking about is how stable Vista is for the general public, on common hardware in typical scenarios. You claim never to have had a crash with any OS aside from DOS 6 -- so what? Does that mean no OS has ever crashed, except DOS 6? No, that's an over-generalization. Because you never had a problem, that doesn't mean that Windows ME wasn't a shitty, buggy, lock-up-and-crash-prone OS that should never have seen a retail shelf.

You have said yourself that there is a *common* problem with sound card drivers. We both agree that faulty drivers cause problems. But should it be a *common* problem, especially for MS' flagship product, released to the public? Shouldn't MS make better drivers, or only allow well-tested, signed drivers? If faulty drivers are a *common* problem, doesn't that show some problem in MS' development or distribution methods?

i've had BSOD with vista 64bit

[vena]

it was ATI's latest driver (release, not beta). i've had three confirmed reports of BSOD from this release. and it's not just ATI, Nvidia's drivers have been seriously lacking. what the hell is going on at ATI/Nvidia? the OS was in PUBLIC beta forever, and now it's two months in release, and the drivers are still screwed.

Re:

[thebdj]

I've been running the 64-bit version of Vista since it was released and it hasn't crashed on me once. This guy couldn't figure out which driver/piece of hardware was causing this instability in a MONTH?
Of course, everyone's mileage may vary. Also, I do not think a driver or hardware issue is unreasonable to extend into a month or more, especially if you consider end-users who have next to no technical skills. I refused to upgrade with my free upgrade from Dell after I read they refused to guarantee my h

Re:

[OrangeTide]

Maybe all that flash on his site is crashing his vista box?

I like the plug-ins to browsers that replace flash with a button you click to enable flash for just that one part. it really scrubs out all those rotten ads.

Re:Sorry, couldn't RTFA

[Anthony Boyd]

Can anyone link to a plagairized copy without all the fucking assholishly intrusive advertising?

Yes. First, get this [mozilla.com] and this [mozilla.org]. Then try this URL [hardocp.com] to read it ad-free.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

It's obvious that he has some hardware issues on his machine that he needs to look into

Are you a shill, or are you telling lies for free?

The hardware was stable under heavier stress testing under both Windows XP and Linux.

Normally, I'm all for bashing Microsoft, being a Linux/Mac OS X user normally, but even I can't agree with this article.

Why, you didn't read it?

While we're on the subject, why shouldn't Quicktime work? It's just yet another Windows application.

Have not forgot - and still use Win2K

[walterbyrd]

Those articles from five years ago were correct. Unless you are a gamer (maybe), it really is not worth upgrading from win2k to XP.

I dual boot Debian and Win2K. Win2k is fast and stable, works with all my hardware, and runs all of my windows apps. The default interface is less cartoonish, and IMO more logical and functional. Win2K does not have that annoying authentication crappola. With Win2K, I don't have to learn a new interface.

I have no idea why people want to bother with XP, much less Vista. I assume