Why do people hate vista?



  • OP here.  I was expecting to see a lot more Vista bashing going on, which is why I went easy on it in the first place.  Vista does have it's share of WTF's.  For example, several latest security patches (which are of course included in SP1), disable the bcdedit setting that allows you to disable driver signing (making VMWare's Virtual Server not work).  I'm not sure whether it could be fixed by using F8 and then saying allow unsigned drivers, but I had to install a hacked boot menu entry which basically does the F8 part for you and VMWare works just fine. 

     Another WTF is that SQL 2K is not supported (although I was able to install SQL 2K dev edition's client tools).  Windows 2008 also doesn't support SQL2K.  

     Those were the only real issues that I can think of that I had in Vista.  That and when my memory usage reaches 6GB, Vista seems to freeze for a few minutes while I guess it swaps things out to disk, at which point used RAM goes from 6GB to around 1GB.  I guess it runs without using the swap file until it reaches the 6GB utilization?



  • @russ0519 said:

     Those were the only real issues that I can think of that I had in Vista.  That and when my memory usage reaches 6GB, Vista seems to freeze for a few minutes while I guess it swaps things out to disk, at which point used RAM goes from 6GB to around 1GB.  I guess it runs without using the swap file until it reaches the 6GB utilization?
     

    More likely to be superfetch. Doesn't sound quite right though, it shouldn't drop or freeze. I would do a little more investigation and see if a rogue process might be eating the memory.



  • I bought a brand new Core 2 Duo T2750 2GHz laptop with 2GB RAM and 250GB Hdd, and GeForce 8400M graphics, and it came with Vista Home Premium. At first it was somewhat enjoyable - Aero looked nice and UAC was reassuring. But one or two things started to bug me a lot:

    1. It took freaking ages to boot - you'd get to the login prompt and be all like "ahh" and then vista was like "nooo, not done booting yet, we've still got lots of churning to do" and then I'd be waiting about the same length of time again for the desktop to appear and hdd activity to stop.

    2. Sometimes sidebar wouldn't start. This happened often, not just a freak occurance but every time you log in is like rolling a dice to determine whether sidebar should either show itself or stay broken with a couple of processes running.

    3. Vista explorer was even more determined to show your files in inappropriate ways than XP, especially with directories of code, which it often thinks is a photo gallery. It's still immensely forgetful of folder types (even with all the suggested fixes applied) and also sometimes decides to stop remembering folder positions and instead make their window absolutely huge, even for just a handful of icons.p

    4. It is impossible to stop random bouts of hard disk activity and cpu drain. It must be built into the kernel or something and it doesn't even seem to be sensitive to whether you're playing a game or doing something else that you don't want interrupting with lots of other stuff going on.

    It just wasn't crisp like you'd expect a brand new fast computer to be when running the OS that came with it. It felt like Windows 95 on a Pentium 60, and it didn't seem worth it just for the few extra features Vista offered.

    So in late February I installed Ubuntu Hardy Alpha with Wubi, and haven't gone back to Vista. Hardy boots quicker even from a virtual disk. It turns out that games run much faster than in Vista, and Wine has fewer incompatibility issues with older games. Nautilus is much better for viewing files - it shows a preview appropriate to each icon rather than forcing the whole folder to one type of view. Its layout is more compact (in compact mode) and it doesn't hang around with a blank window for ages before showing me the files.

    Hardy is now Beta and soon I plan to port it from the virtual disk to a real partition and set up an xp dual boot for dire emergencies, like if I really really want to play FS9 on my laptop. Come to think of it there's a bit of a parallel between Vista/XP and FSX/FS9. Anyway, anything that I can't run in linux can go jump, because my favourites work.



  • @russ0519 said:

    Another WTF is that SQL 2K is not supported (although I was able to install SQL 2K dev edition's client tools).  Windows 2008 also doesn't support SQL2K.
     

    Personally, I wouldn't call that a WTF - maybe an annoyance.  Microsoft stops mainstream support of SQL 2000 April 8th 2008 so no feature fixes/patches unless you pay.  They just supply security patches.  Microsoft also doesn't run the full set of patch tests against SQL 2000 so anyone of them may break it. 

    Right or wrong SQL 2000 is on its way out (not fast enough IMO), so I don't think continuing to support it on new OSes makes sense.  

     



  • @lpope187 said:

    @russ0519 said:

    Another WTF is that SQL 2K is not supported (although I was able to install SQL 2K dev edition's client tools).  Windows 2008 also doesn't support SQL2K.
     

    Personally, I wouldn't call that a WTF - maybe an annoyance.  Microsoft stops mainstream support of SQL 2000 April 8th 2008 so no feature fixes/patches unless you pay.  They just supply security patches.  Microsoft also doesn't run the full set of patch tests against SQL 2000 so anyone of them may break it. 

    Right or wrong SQL 2000 is on its way out (not fast enough IMO), so I don't think continuing to support it on new OSes makes sense.  

     

    Right, and how long has SQL server 2005 been out for now? Time to catch up I would say.

    SQL Server 2008 is rolling out soon I think... anyone know when?



  • @ComputerForumUser said:

    2. Sometimes sidebar wouldn't start. This happened often, not just a freak occurance but every time you log in is like rolling a dice to determine whether sidebar should either show itself or stay broken with a couple of processes running.

    This is one of the features I just turn off to make vista acceptable.  If you really want your computer moving along, sometimes you just need to strip it down a bit. When you buy a new computer, it comes loaded with all these apps that run at startup, but not all of them are needed. Same thing for vista features. The sidebar and the UAC are the first two things to go when I set it up. Then I look at what else came with the computer that I absolutely will never use and get rid of them. After I done that, I look for things I use rarely that are launched at startup and prevent them from launching at startup if I can do it manually.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Right, and how long has SQL server 2005 been out for now? Time to catch up I would say.

    SQL Server 2008 is rolling out soon I think... anyone know when?

     

    Latest unofficial from MS is August.  I can't wait.  C# for SSIS and actual DATE columns - I'm so happy.

     



  • Other than my already-discussed issues with Superfetch (of which I seem to be the only sufferer, but I digress), I have noticed a few things with Explorer itself that don't make any sense. I haven't been able to consistently reproduce these issues, but when they happen it's often maddening. I think they're all the same issue in disguise.

    1. Renaming a file can sometimes take upward of 60 seconds to complete, freezing Explorer during the wait. Just the other day I renamed an image from "copy of image.jpg" or whatever it was called to just "image" without the extention. I believe it took about two minutes for this action to complete. The system wasn't under any heavy strain at the time.
    2. Opening a file in Windows Gallery can sometimes take more than a minute to complete, and it often freezes up while browsing through image files in a directory. I'm not sure if it's because the images are broken somehow or what. The reason I think this is related to issue 1 is because the Explorer session I'm working with freezes up alongside Gallery.

    In either case, trying to shut down Gallery or Explorer results in the Windows window manager (or whatever it is that's in charge of the taskbar, sidebar and all that) restarting. I've learned to just wait it out when it happens, but I'd rather it never happen at all.

    It doesn't happen often enough for me to spend the time it would take to figure out what's going wrong, but when it does happen it takes so much time that it's a bother. No other applications are affected, so I normally just do something else while waiting for the operation to complete.

    As I've said before in other Vista threads, I like Vista a lot. It's fast, stable and runs every application and hardware (except for my 10-year-old webcam - but I can run that off of my laptop) I have, even apps designed for Windows 95 like Shove-It. But then again, I shelled out the money for a top-of-the-line machine so all of my hardware is modern (new within the last five years) with the exception of my Model-M keyboard and my aforementioned webcam.

    I'm not really sure if I had a point to make, but if I did I've certainly forgotten it by now. Please carry on.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    That is nowhere near accurate and you know it. Don't discredit your normally insightful replies with ridiculous accusations like this.
     

    No, honestly, do you think anyone with a brand new virgin install of Vista is going to be able to do much of anything truly useful? The only "real" app that ships with Vista is Internet Explorer, and maybe Movie Maker and Media Center. Everything else is mickey mouse toy stuff compared to what usually gets installed later. Paint Brush and Notepad and Wordpad/Write are just there to fill out some marketroid's checklist of features.

    It may be enough for Grandma or Aunt Mabel, but anyone else is going to bypass all those "features" and install something better. 



  • @MarcB said:

    It may be enough for Grandma or Aunt Mabel, but anyone else is going to bypass all those "features" and install something better. 
     

    If they include anything more or better they will face antitrust lawsuits and idiots calling it 'bloatware'. It ships with everything needed to use your computer. Beyond that you need to install software for your needs. That makes perfect sense to me.



  • @Lingerance said:

    I'll try to be impartial (as I tend to slant against MS and don't want to be flamed for "flaming"), I use Vista on my "Vista Capable" (1.6ghtz CPU + 512MB ram) laptop.

    Well, good thing you qualified that as being biased before you posted, then.

    First, try buying an actual Vista capable machine. From your profile, you're most likely in the US or Canada (Pacific Time Zone?), which means you're not in a third world country. Why are you trying to run a modern OS on mid-'90s hardware? I mean, who in their right mind runs a machine with only 512 megs of RAM in this day and age?

    @Lingerance said:

    These are my current annoyances:
    1. It's fecking slow. I have the theming service (thus no Aero) turned off among others.

    Like I said, run it on current hardware. Expecting it to run on an almost DOS-compatible machine is ridiculous. It's like saying "My riding mower doesn't run as fast as that Porsche, even though I put in the same high-octane gasoline!"

     

    @Lingerance said:

    2. It takes about 3 seconds for a tab to show in the tab bar (IE), another few seconds I can actually do something. This is annoying as my habit is to open a tab, let it load a page, continue reading the page that has loaded while I wait for the new one to load.

    Again, running a riding mower and expecting race car performance is idiotic.

    @Lingerance said:

    3. It took me half an hour to prodding (on the bus at the time so I couldn't look it up) to give up, try the control panel and use folder options from there (which is what I wanted in the first place anyways). In IE I can click the TAB-bar and select "show menu", explorer does not have that. CTRL+T did not do anything (I was hoping to have tabbing in Explorer).

    As was pointed out, your lack of knowledge of how Windows has worked since at least Windows 3.0 is not a reason to blame Vista. Alt works just like it always has, and just like it worked in XP.

    @Lingerance said:

    4. Add-Remove programs has been renamed, totally not expecting that, not that I've needed to use it yet.

    So, let's see. Because you apparently have reading comprehension problems, and can't find what you don't even need, Vista is bad. Riiiigggghhhtttt.

    @Lingerance said:

    5. Expected cmd.exe when running "route delete ..." to trigger UAC, runas.exe can't find administrator, with help found that right clicking command prompt lets you run as admin.

    Gee. A two-second look in the online help found a topic called "Running a command prompt as Administrator". Were you smart enough to look in help? No? Bad Vista! Bad!!!

    Here's your tip for the day (free of charge): Click the Start button. In the Search box, type "command prompt" (don't worry, you won't have to type it all - part way through it becomes the only item on the Start menu, and you can quit typing). Right click on the "Command Prompt" shortcut, and choose "Run as Administrator" from the context menu. Type in the Administrator name and password, and YAY! Lingerance can run a command prompt as Admin!!! 

    @Lingerance said:

    6. Copying a 500-600MB file from my DVD-Drive will cripple the operating system, I can not do anything as a 5 second task takes about 30 seconds to go through. 4 minutes to calculate how long it will take.

    This issue was fixed in SP1.


    @Lingerance said:

    7. On my own I still can't figure out how to name an interface, because the default ones are crap "Local area network" and "public 2", guess which one is wireless.

    Again, your ignorance. Vista works the same as XP, ME, 98, and 95 in that regard.Right-click, choose "Rename". 

    @Lingerance said:

    8. I vehemently hate dialog boxes.

    So?

    I bought a new machine last week. It's amazing. NewEgg.com has an Acer Aspire M5620 for $750. It comes with a Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz CPU, 4 GM RAM, a 750 MB SATA drive, DVD burner, 10 USB ports, a 9 in 1 card reader, an ATI Radeon video card (don't remember which one, but it's 256MB and supports two DVI outputs), keyboard and mouse. (No monitor, notice.) It also comes with Vista Home Premium 32-bit. I also paid $25 for UPS two day service. (I placed the order at 10PM Eastern on April 2nd.)

    While I waited for the machine to get here, I downloaded Vista SP1 from Microsoft's web site. Not bad; about a CD's worth of file. I also decide that, since I'm doing the new machine, and I've gotten used to the two flatscreens I use at work, that I'm buying new monitors. I visit the local Circuit City, where I pick up two 22" LCD flatscreens for $219 each.

    The machine arrived at my house Friday, April 4th, at 6PM. I met the UPS guy at the back of the truck - I try to do this all the time, since I get quite a bit of stuff delivered.

    I plug in the monitors, keyboard, and mouse, and hit the power on button (took a minute or two to find it, as it's not a typical button - it's a curved piece of plastic above a blue LED about two inches long that curves in from about halfway down the right side of the tower). Vista starts to boot, and the install begins.

    Thirty minutes later, I'm looking at Vista for the first time ever. Sure, I've seen pictures in magazines and online, but have never actually seen it. Still, it's familiar enough that I can set up a password for the Administrator account (not called Administrator, of course) and create a new user that doesn't have Admin privileges. I log out and log in as that user, so I can see what this UAC stuff is all about.

    You know what? UAC is actually pretty well implemented. I went through installing SP1, my IDE, Office, and a few other things (still that same night, so it couldn't have been too hard to find my way around - remember I didn't even receive the box from UPS until 6PM). I didn't find the prompting that annoying, even with doing several things in succession that required Admin privileges. I notice that some things take a little longer to find, because they've moved or renamed them; things also appear and disappear depending on who you're logged in as.

    I'll grant you that I'm not a new Windows user, but didn't think you were either. I've been developing for and using Windows since 3.0 was released (versions before that I looked at and said, "This graphical stuff is crap! Nobody will ever use that!" - 3.0 was the first version I saw that made me realize that it would probably catch on).  

    And Vista boots FAST once you've gotten through the installation phase! That machine boots about three times as fast as my Gateway laptop (AMD Turion 64, 2 GHz, 1 MB RAM). It's only about 20 seconds or so to the login screen, and 30 seconds or so after I type in the password I have a working machine. Sure, stuff is still loading in the background, but the machine is actually usable enough at that point that I can start the IDE and it loads at the usual speed.

    I've been using the Vista machine at home for a week (as of tonight when I get home), and I have to say I like it. I was all ready to install the XP version from my previous machine (non-OEM, so I can), but as of this point see no need.  

    And as far as being bloatware, that's crap. It's no more full of bloatware than the Linux distro that comes on multiple CDs or DVDs; there's stuff on the Linux CDs you don't need, and there's stuff on the Vista DVD that you don't need. Just don't install it. (If you need help figuring out how not to install it, drop me a note - I do consulting/contracting, and I'll give you a discounted rate for hand-holding since you're a TDWTF member.)



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    If they include anything more or better they will face antitrust lawsuits and idiots calling it 'bloatware'. It ships with everything needed to use your computer. Beyond that you need to install software for your needs. That makes perfect sense to me.
     

    Exactly. So that begs the question, why does Vista take up 3gig in a virgin install, when that same 3gig in Linux gets you the "complete" OS?



  •  @MarcB said:

    why does Vista take up 3gig in a virgin install, when that same 3gig in Linux gets you the "complete" OS?

    Who cares? Are you that hard up for hard drive space?

    How does this have anything to do with the argument at hand?

     

    Not to mention you say the "complete" OS. Office apps are not a part of an OS.... Nor is the gimp, or photoshop or anything else.

     

    What exactly IS your point anyway?



  • @KenW said:

    First, try buying an actual Vista capable machine. From your profile, you're most likely in the US or Canada (Pacific Time Zone?), which means you're not in a third world country. Why are you trying to run a modern OS on mid-'90s hardware? I mean, who in their right mind runs a machine with only 512 megs of RAM in this day and age?

    That machine is 1.5 years old, I would not say that is mid-90's hardware.
    @KenW said:
    Gee. A two-second look in the online help found a topic called "Running a command prompt as Administrator". Were you smart enough to look in help? No? Bad Vista! Bad!!!
    Here's your tip for the day (free of charge): Click the Start button. In the Search box, type "command prompt" (don't worry, you won't have to type it all - part way through it becomes the only item on the Start menu, and you can quit typing). Right click on the "Command Prompt" shortcut, and choose "Run as Administrator" from the context menu. Type in the Administrator name and password, and YAY! Lingerance can run a command prompt as Admin!!!

    Internet access is not always available as was the case here, in fact the goal of this was to get internet access. Also a fellow student pointed out that very solution which was recorded in my original post which you were quoting.
    @KenW said:
    Again, your ignorance. Vista works the same as XP, ME, 98, and 95 in that regard.Right-click, choose "Rename". 

    Again I'll ask where the feck you do that (right click specifically), I do know how to rename them now (through another means).
    @KenW said:
    Like I said, run it on current hardware. Expecting it to run on an almost DOS-compatible machine is ridiculous. It's like saying "My riding mower doesn't run as fast as that Porsche, even though I put in the same high-octane gasoline!"
    Must be nice to actually be able to buy a new computer every year or so. As a student I cannot afford that, also I would suggest you note I mentioned specifically the machine is marked "Vista Capable" rating: 1.0 because of video card, everything else is above 3.5, isn't 5.0 the max?



    As for trying out Vista on my laptop is because I can spare that computer, it's my second newest machine, newest is a VM host desktop.



  • @Lingerance said:

    That machine is 1.5 years old, I would not say that is mid-90's hardware.
     

    As I have said before, the age of the machine means nothing. 512MB of ram certainly is not 1.5 year old vintage standard. Time to get with the current times. I wouldn't bother running a machine with under a gig of RAM these days. And that has NOTHING to do with Vista.

    @Lingerance said:

    Again I'll ask where the feck you do that (right click specifically), I do know how to rename them now (through another means).

    I have tried to explain this to you multiple times, I am not sure why it is so hard for you... 

     @Lingerance said:

    I mentioned specifically the machine is marked "Vista Capable" rating: 1.0

    So knowing that, you still had to post about how slow Vista was, as if this was MS' fault?

    "I bought a 4 cylinder car with 70 hp.... And it barely makes it up hills. WTF!"

    If you couldn't afford a machine with the right specs, then maybe you should have waited to upgrade to a new OS....



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    I have tried to explain this to you multiple times, I am not sure why it is so hard for you...

    I also understood, why that is a problem for is beyond me. I asked a question that was technically unanswered both times to the exact same statement "right click the network card like every other Windows since 2000" and both times I asked "where is that done?" You answered "Network Connections" and I said "I don't see that anywhere (start-menu/control panel/administrative tools)", so he stated the same thing, as he might actually be able to answer my question so I asked again.
    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    So knowing that, you still had to post about how slow Vista was, as if this was MS' fault?

    My weakest link is my video-card (which has two ratings: 1.0 [gaming] and 1.9 [graphics]), with Aero disabled one would think that would be a non issue, the rest of my hardware (including RAM [2.9]) is 2.9+ (previous post mistakenly said it was 3.5).
    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    If you couldn't afford a machine with the right specs, then maybe you should have waited to upgrade to a new OS....

    I still don't get why you think my system is unable to run Vista, as stated my rating may be 1.0 but that because of gaming graphics being marked low when the rest is fairly high. I meet the minimum requirements, I may have exaggerated the claim of it being slow in general, but when copying from CD I can't do anything, I will be upgrading to SP1 tonight, hopefully that fixes the issue. Also the fact that it takes longer to "calculate the estimated time remaining" for longer than it takes to copy the one file is irksome.



  • @Lingerance said:

    I also understood, why that is a problem for is beyond me. I asked a question that was technically unanswered both times to the exact same statement "right click the network card like every other Windows since 2000" and both times I asked "where is that done?" You answered "Network Connections" and I said "I don't see that anywhere (start-menu/control panel/administrative tools)", so he stated the same thing, as he might actually be able to answer my question so I asked again.
     

    Again. Right click network on the desktop > Properties > Manage network connections.

    @Lingerance said:

    My weakest link is my video-card (which has two ratings: 1.0 [gaming] and 1.9 [graphics]), with Aero disabled one would think that would be a non issue, the rest of my hardware (including RAM [2.9]) is 2.9+ (previous post mistakenly said it was 3.5).

    But you KNEW it ranked very low on the scale, and you are still acting surprised that it does not perform well.

    @Lingerance said:

    I still don't get why you think my system is unable to run Vista

    The little 4 cylinder runs too, but are you going to win a race? I think not. 

    @Lingerance said:

    I meet the minimum requirements,

    You meet the VERY BASE requirements. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

    @Lingerance said:

    Also the fact that it takes longer to "calculate the estimated time remaining" for longer than it takes to copy the one file is irksome.

    This was posted before by someone else: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001058.html

     

     



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @Lingerance said:

    Also the fact that it takes longer to "calculate the estimated time remaining" for longer than it takes to copy the one file is irksome.

    This was posted before by someone else: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001058.html

     

    This issue has been resolved, at least for me, in Vista SP1.  I cannot speak to real numbers (e.g. MB/s, many small files versus few large files, etc.), but subjectively, copy performance seems better, especially since the "time remaining" calculation is resolved much faster now.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Again. Right click network on the desktop > Properties > Manage network connections.

    The real WTF is you have to refer to a CLSID if you want to create a shortcut to the "classic" Network Connections applet (Start -> Network -> Network And Sharing Center -> Manage Network Connections; I'm sure there's a shorter way which still requires more than 1 click):

    "C:\Windows\explorer.exe ::{7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}"

    MS is a doing a better job pleasing non-power users (I know, 99% of their home market), and a slightly worse job for power users who are accustomed to XP or want slightly more control.  For example, a few people are pissed off that MS changed the selection/drag-drop behaviour to "full row" in Vista.  You can turn off full-row selection via the registry, but as I understand it, the drag/drop target is always the full row, regardless (haven't tried the registry setting myself).  As a result, some people find move/copy via drag-and-drop to a folder full of files much more difficult now.  (Previously you could drop on *any* blank space , now dropping on the blank space near the filename will cause the target to be the file, not the folder.  You have to use a bit of finesse to drop *between* files.)

    (Yes, I know there are workarounds, such as narrowing the rightmost column so there's a blank area for dropping.)

    Oh well, can't please everyone.

     



  • @CodeSimian said:

    Oh well, can't please everyone.
     

    QFT.



  • @CodeSimian said:

    You have to use a bit of finesse to drop *between* files.)

    (Yes, I know there are workarounds, such as narrowing the rightmost column so there's a blank area for dropping.)

    Oh well, can't please everyone.

     

    Never noticed this myself since I always just drag to the title bar anyway.

    But no, MS are always in the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" category with a lot of people. Whatever spot they choose on the line between backwards compatibility and positive change being the main one.

    Personally I love Vista - given the right resources.



  • @RayS said:

    But no, MS are always in the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" category with a lot of people. Whatever spot they choose on the line between backwards compatibility and positive change being the main one.
     

    Here's an interesting opinion on MS's recent supposed shift from "pragmatism to idealism" concerning backwards compatibility:

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html

    (Of course, there are those who question Joel's relevancy....) 

     



  • @CodeSimian said:

    @RayS said:

    But no, MS are always in the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" category with a lot of people. Whatever spot they choose on the line between backwards compatibility and positive change being the main one.
     

    Here's an interesting opinion on MS's recent supposed shift from "pragmatism to idealism" concerning backwards compatibility:

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html

    (Of course, there are those who question Joel's relevancy....) 

     

     

    I think it's a very insightfull article.  For me, however, most of the apps work.  It does suck that they can't just release SQL 2K SP to make it Windows 2008 compatible.  SQL costs a lot of money and there are no upgrade paths.  I'm not going to shell out tens of thousands of dollars just to be able to run SQL on Windows 2008, so I guess that upgrade it out of the question.  Although  Windows 2008 has downgrade rights, so I guess I can run 2k3 even if I buy 2k8 licenses.. 



  • Here is the reasons:

    1. It is slow.
    2. It uses too much memory.
    3. It uses too much disk space.
    4. DRM.
    5. Everything is moved around too much.
    6. Incompatibility with a lot of stuff.
    7. It will eventually expire anyways unless you can fix it so it doesn't do that.
    8. Graphics is too much.
    9. You can no longer have multiple identities in e-mail software without creating multiple user accounts.
    10. I don't like the login screen, the old NT login screen is best and that is what I use on my computer.
    11. It is very hard to understand, almost I have to remove my eyes, it is so bad!
    12. Apparently there is some hidden blocked software list, that it refuses to run any software from that list.
    13. All sorts of things.
    That is why I don't use Vista on my computer. If I ever get rid of XP then I will install Linux instead, probably Debian Linux customized a bit in my own way.


  • @zzo38 said:

    Here is the reasons:

    1. It is slow.
    2. It uses too much memory.
    3. It uses too much disk space.
    4. DRM.
    5. Everything is moved around too much.
    6. Incompatibility with a lot of stuff.
    7. It will eventually expire anyways unless you can fix it so it doesn't do that.
    8. Graphics is too much.
    9. You can no longer have multiple identities in e-mail software without creating multiple user accounts.
    10. I don't like the login screen, the old NT login screen is best and that is what I use on my computer.
    11. It is very hard to understand, almost I have to remove my eyes, it is so bad!
    12. Apparently there is some hidden blocked software list, that it refuses to run any software from that list.
    13. All sorts of things.
    That is why I don't use Vista on my computer. If I ever get rid of XP then I will install Linux instead, probably Debian Linux customized a bit in my own way.
    That list is like half baseless, uninformed Vista bashing and a quarter Linux-fanboy rhetoric.  Was #14 on your list going to be dislike of the default desktop background?  The funny thing is, you probably made the same whiny complaints about XP when it came out, too.


  • @bstorer said:

    @zzo38 said:

    Here is the reasons:

    [snip]

    It is very hard to understand, almost I have to remove my eyes, it is so bad!

    [snip] 

    That is why I don't use Vista on my computer. If I ever get rid of XP then I will install Linux instead, probably Debian Linux customized a bit in my own way.

    That list is like half baseless, uninformed Vista bashing and a quarter Linux-fanboy rhetoric.  Was #14 on your list going to be dislike of the default desktop background?  The funny thing is, you probably made the same whiny complaints about XP when it came out, too.
     

    Nonsense, I personally know 2 guys who gouged their own eyes out after using Vista for 5 minutes! 



  • @CodeSimian said:

    Nonsense, I personally know 2 guys who gouged their own eyes out after using Vista for 5 minutes! 
     

    Did they survive? If not, candidates for the Darwin Awards.



  • @bstorer said:

    @zzo38 said:

    Here is the reasons:

    1. It is slow.
    2. It uses too much memory.
    3. It uses too much disk space.
    4. DRM.
    5. Everything is moved around too much.
    6. Incompatibility with a lot of stuff.
    7. It will eventually expire anyways unless you can fix it so it doesn't do that.
    8. Graphics is too much.
    9. You can no longer have multiple identities in e-mail software without creating multiple user accounts.
    10. I don't like the login screen, the old NT login screen is best and that is what I use on my computer.
    11. It is very hard to understand, almost I have to remove my eyes, it is so bad!
    12. Apparently there is some hidden blocked software list, that it refuses to run any software from that list.
    13. All sorts of things.
    That is why I don't use Vista on my computer. If I ever get rid of XP then I will install Linux instead, probably Debian Linux customized a bit in my own way.
    That list is like half baseless, uninformed Vista bashing and a quarter Linux-fanboy rhetoric.  Was #14 on your list going to be dislike of the default desktop background?  The funny thing is, you probably made the same whiny complaints about XP when it came out, too.
    I do dislike the default background (I dislike the default XP background as well, so I just made it no background picture instead), but not liking the default background is no reason not to use Vista (that that is why it isn't on the list), it can easily be corrected. There are real reasons not to use Vista but the default background isn't one of them. Actually I didn't like the graphics of XP either but if you select "adjust for best performance" it makes it better and also faster. Title bar gradients can also be easily removed and that is what I did, many of the things I don't want can easily be removed. And, XP does not have a lot of incompatibility, as much as Vista does! At least XP is not hard to understand like Vista is. I have used Vista before on other people's computers so I do know how bad it is, and the FSF just confirms that belief.


  • @zzo38 said:

    And, XP does not have a lot of incompatibility, as much as Vista does! At least XP is not hard to understand like Vista is.
    At no point have I found Vista even remotely more difficult than XP.

    @zzo38 said:

    I have used Vista before on other people's computers so I do know how bad it is,

    No, you clearly don't know how bad it is, because most of your complaints are capable of being disabled or changed.  I'd go point-by-point, but I know it's not going to accomplish anything.

    @zzo38 said:

    and the FSF just confirms that belief.
    The FSF has many good features to recommend it, but when it comes to Microsoft, they're not exactly unbiased.  Besides, the two points made in that article are the DRM, which you mentioned above as #4 (and is easily circumvented), and the fact that it's proprietary, just like XP was.



  • @zzo38 said:

    XP does not have a lot of incompatibility, as much as Vista does!

     

     

    OH... MY... FUCKING... GOD!

    an old, well-established product has [slightly] more compatability with old, established products than does its new successor which is trying to move forward? SHIT! thank you so much for telling me this piece of irrelevant, common-sense knowledge. is there any more? 'WTF??!!!11//1!?1 MAH WINZ 98 DOENST RUN C-O-D-4!'

    in my experience there is little to no incompatablility with vista, and most can be solved with 'run in compatabilioty mode'. it really annoys me when people whing that windows is bloated with backwards-compatability, and then say how annoyed they are that some stuff wont run on their new vista PC.

    were you like this with the release of XP? i bet you were, and you will be about the one after vista. Advice: leave until youre either a] as stupid and as entertaining as spectate, or b] in possession of coherent, rational views, that people wont mind hearing



  •  I think part of the perception that Vista sucks can be blamed on PC manufacturers shipping it on lower-end machines.  For example, the other day I had the privilege of using (if you could call it that) a laptop with 486 megs of ram that came preinstalled with Vista.  If manufacturers had taken better care to phase in Vista on their higher-end machines and keep XP on their lower-end machines, Vista might have a slightly better reputation. Maybe once the average PC catches up with Vista, people won't hate it so much.



  • @HaunchesMcGee said:

     I think part of the perception that Vista sucks can be blamed on PC manufacturers shipping it on lower-end machines.  For example, the other day I had the privilege of using (if you could call it that) a laptop with 486 megs of ram that came preinstalled with Vista.  If manufacturers had taken better care to phase in Vista on their higher-end machines and keep XP on their lower-end machines, Vista might have a slightly better reputation. Maybe once the average PC catches up with Vista, people won't hate it so much.

     

    It's funny you should say that, since Microsoft itself is being sued for their "Vista-capable" marketing.  Basically, the accusation is that they marketed machines which can run nothing better than Vista Home Basic as "Vista-capable".  In an internal email, one Microsoft exec complained that he bought a $2000 "email machine".

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080224-judge-greenlights-vista-capable-lawsuit-but-limits-scope.html 

    Earlier this month, though, it came out during a hearing that the Vista Capable program wasn't just burning consumers—it was burning some Microsoft employees as well. Microsoft VP of Windows product management Mike Nash wrote in an internal e-mail, "I PERSONALLY got burnt. ... Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine," while Jim Allchin, then the co-president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, wrote in another e-mail, "We really botched this. ... You guys have to do a better job with our customers." Still, Microsoft played down the quotes during the hearing, saying that they were taken out of context and that in the end, the company stood behind the program.

     

    Funny thing is, Dell published a table breaking down the different classes of machines that can run Vista.  Take a look:

    http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/vista_support/vista_upgrade?c=us&l=en&lnki=0&s=gen&~ck=ln&~f=lg

     


    <font color="#ff0000">Windows Vista Capable</font>Windows Vista
    Premium Ready
    Dell Recommended

    Good Better Best
    System Memory512MB RAM1GB RAM2GB Dual Channel (2 DIMMS)
    Graphics MemoryIntegrated or discrete128 MB Graphics Card (integrated or discrete)256MB Graphics Card
    ProcessorModern processor (>=800MHz)1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64)Dual-Core
    Hard Drive>=15GB free (recommended)40GB capacity, >=15GB free7200 rpm
    Windows Vista® AeroTM  ExperienceNoneAeroTM  enabled as a default, but performance may be compromised as more windows, applications and games are opened. Can enhance AeroTM  experience and system performance
    Great For...<font color="#ff0000">Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games</font>Multitasking (e-mail, basic photo editing, basic video editing, music, spreadsheets, browsing, and other applications) The experience is only assured in single monitor mode. Dual monitor is supported, but may affect the AeroTM  premium experience. Multitasking with power-hungry applications (large spreadsheets, advanced video and photo editing, HD viewing and recording).Dual Monitor Usage

    That's right. It says Vista-capable machines are good for  "Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games".   Remember, "Vista-capable" is a Microsoft-created marketing term.  

    I don't think the manufacturers can take all the blame on this one. 



  • @jakkle said:

    in my experience there is little to no incompatablility with vista, and most can be solved with 'run in compatabilioty mode'. it really annoys me when people whing that windows is bloated with backwards-compatability, and then say how annoyed they are that some stuff wont run on their new vista PC.

    were you like this with the release of XP? i bet you were, and you will be about the one after vista. Advice: leave until youre either a] as stupid and as entertaining as spectate, or b] in possession of coherent, rational views, that people wont mind hearing


    When XP was launched I saw at the store I didn't like it, but when I used it for the first time I easily corrected it. The first time I used Vista I couldn't correct a lot of stuff, or it is very hard to correct. Some stuff is very good though, such as keeping the old keyboard shortcuts. ALT+D to access the old-style address bar (it was easy to figure out, just try), WIN+R to run (also easy to understand), ALT+SPACE for control menu, double-click control menu to close, double-click title bar to maximize/restore, just like XP and older versions. There is probably other good things, also. Not that bad, yet. But, when I try to do more complicated things, I realize how bad it is, it really is 100x much harder to understand as XP. Also, I don't think you can use unsigned drivers in 64-bit Vista (but if you don't use 64-bit, it doesn't matter). So, just like any other version of Windows they make many good stuff and many bad stuff also. Which means, that when I stop using XP, I will not be using Windows at all anymore. Windows ME is also bad, at least I don't use that one either! XP has a few incompatibility, such as, the F.A.S.T.E.R engine keeps speed up and slow down all the time in XP, but on 98, the F.A.S.T.E.R engine works perfectly.



  • @CodeSimian said:

    <snip>...</snip> 

    That's right. It says Vista-capable machines are good for  "Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games".   Remember, "Vista-capable" is a Microsoft-created marketing term.  

    I don't think the manufacturers can take all the blame on this one. 

    Wow, that's absolutely mind blowing.  I had no idea.  

     



  • @CodeSimian said:

     


    <font color="#ff0000">Windows Vista Capable</font>Windows Vista
    Premium Ready
    Dell Recommended

    Good Better Best
    System Memory512MB RAM1GB RAM2GB Dual Channel (2 DIMMS)
    Graphics MemoryIntegrated or discrete128 MB Graphics Card (integrated or discrete)256MB Graphics Card
    ProcessorModern processor (>=800MHz)1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64)Dual-Core
    Hard Drive>=15GB free (recommended)40GB capacity, >=15GB free7200 rpm
    Windows Vista® AeroTM  ExperienceNoneAeroTM  enabled as a default, but performance may be compromised as more windows, applications and games are opened. Can enhance AeroTM  experience and system performance
    Great For...<font color="#ff0000">Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games</font>Multitasking (e-mail, basic photo editing, basic video editing, music, spreadsheets, browsing, and other applications) The experience is only assured in single monitor mode. Dual monitor is supported, but may affect the AeroTM  premium experience. Multitasking with power-hungry applications (large spreadsheets, advanced video and photo editing, HD viewing and recording).Dual Monitor Usage

    Let's be fair here, that is from Dell maketing, and guess what? They're trying to upsell. Even when Vista came out, nobody sold equipment matching the first column. "Hey, wanna run Vista? Buy one of our new PCs!!!". Remember this is all marketing, and marketing is what gives us crap like this and "Pentium III speeds up ur internetz!!!"

    Also having tried Vista on several PCs from bad to great, it really does scale better than XP. So yeah, XP for yesterday's PCs, Vista for tomorrow's. It's also more secure, more robust (what does it say on the Vista BSOD? Never seen it. When XP was new, I saw more blue screen than blue fisher price title bars), more capable (per-app volume control? Why didn't we have that a decade ago!), and it's (personal opinion, granted) the best looking OS out there.

     



  • @Lingerance said:

    That machine is 1.5 years old, I would not say that is mid-90's hardware.

    No, when you bought it makes no difference. You bought it with mid-90s level hardware. I can buy an 8088-based system today on EBay if I want (maybe even a new system that hasn't been used, if I try hard enough); that doesn't make it current hardware.

    @Lingerance said:

    Internet access is not always available as was the case here, in fact the goal of this was to get internet access. Also a fellow student pointed out that very solution which was recorded in my original post which you were quoting.

    No, I mean online as in "on the computer system". Start->Help ring a bell?

    Sorry... I forget that apparently you know nothing about Windows. I should have been more specific. 

    @Lingerance said:

    Must be nice to actually be able to buy a new computer every year or so. As a student I cannot afford that, also I would suggest you note I mentioned specifically the machine is marked "Vista Capable" rating: 1.0 because of video card, everything else is above 3.5, isn't 5.0 the max?

    Nobody said anything about buying a new computer every year. My current laptop is two years old this month; it would probably run Vista, but not well. I'm smart enough to be able to figure that out. It only has a gig of RAM; I could increase it to double that, but I don't think the Radeon Mobile video card would have the performance. I'm pretty sure the 2 GHz AMD Turion 64 wouldn't be enough. 

    What I did say is that when you do buy a new machine (as you apparently did a year and a half ago), you should buy an up-to-date machine. You didn't, so don't bitch about it not performing well with the latest OS.

    And a video card rating of 1.0 is like having a screen that updates via crayon - I think the old toy Etch-A-Sketch is rated at around that number. 5.0 is not the max - there actually *is* no max. MS made it that way on purpose so the scale has an actual value as new hardware is released. It can actually be used to compare components or entire systems - the individual components each get their own score, but the machine is scored at the level of its' lowest performing component. Your "Vista compatible" system isn't; it has an overall rating of 1.0.

    My new Vista machine comes in with an overall of 5.4. Everything but video is a 5.9, but the video performance drops the overall rating.



  • @zzo38 said:

    Here is the reasons:

    It is slow.



    I don't have that problem on my latest machine.

    @zzo38 said:


    It uses too much memory.

    Buy more. Seriously. RAM is cheap.

    @zzo38 said:


    It uses too much disk space.

    Again, buy more. Huge drives are not expensive anymore.

    @zzo38 said:


    DRM.

    Not a problem for me. Do you pirate movies or music?

    @zzo38 said:


    Everything is moved around too much.

    Hmmm... Let's see. People bitched about Win95's UI, saying it was different from Win3.1. All the time people bitch here about XP's UI, and how Win98 was better. Then people bitch about Vista's UI, and now XP was better. So your point is basically "People bitch about change. Then they get used to it. Then they bitch about the next change. Then they get used to it." Right?

     @zzo38 said:

    Incompatibility with a lot of stuff.

    So the software that was written wrong stops working. Complain to whoever wrote the software that they wrote it badly, and that you won't use it until they fix it. If enough people do that, the dumb ass developers who didn't listen when XP came out and MS said "You need to change where your software saves it's settings. It's not Program Files anymore." will start paying attention, and the software won't break on the next *documented as coming* change to the OS.

    @zzo38 said:


    It will eventually expire anyways unless you can fix it so it doesn't do that.

    Huh? WTF are you talking about?

    @zzo38 said:


    Graphics is too much.

    Was your graphics card made in the '90s? Besides, turn off Aero if you don't want it.

    @zzo38 said:

    You can no longer have multiple identities in e-mail software without creating multiple user accounts.

    I guess that depends on the email software you're using, doesn't it? I haven't gotten around to installing Thunderbird on my new machine yet, so I don't know. Wouldn't be a big deal to me, though.

    @zzo38 said:


    I don't like the login screen, the old NT login screen is best and that is what I use on my computer.

    So you just want to bitch about a screen you see for a few seconds when your machine starts? Right... This is a SERIOUS problem. I agree. It means that Vista is a worthless piece of crap, and nobody should use it. I mean, somebody named "zzo38" says the login screen sux. Format the drive and install Linux!!! 

    @zzo38 said:


    It is very hard to understand, almost I have to remove my eyes, it is so bad!

    I don't have that problem. Perhaps Windows needs too much intelligence from you?

    @zzo38 said:


    Apparently there is some hidden blocked software list, that it refuses to run any software from that list.

    Says who? What software? I haven't had anything that it "refuses to run".

    @zzo38 said:


    All sorts of things.

    Great. A list from FSF.org. Anti-MS group says Vista is bad. What a surprise.

    @zzo38 said:

    That is why I don't use Vista on my computer. If I ever get rid of XP then I will install Linux instead, probably Debian Linux customized a bit in my own way.
     

    Great. Go to Linux instead. Perhaps you'll post your nonsense somewhere else then.



  • @zzo38 said:

    I do dislike the default background (I dislike the default XP background as well, so I just made it no background picture instead), but not liking the default background is no reason not to use Vista (that that is why it isn't on the list), it can easily be corrected. There are real reasons not to use Vista but the default background isn't one of them. Actually I didn't like the graphics of XP either but if you select "adjust for best performance" it makes it better and also faster. Title bar gradients can also be easily removed and that is what I did, many of the things I don't want can easily be removed. And, XP does not have a lot of incompatibility, as much as Vista does! At least XP is not hard to understand like Vista is. I have used Vista before on other people's computers so I do know how bad it is, and the FSF just confirms that belief.
     

    You're still spewing nonsense.

    You're another one of the Linux fanboi idiots who hasn't got a clue what they're talking about and continues to babble on anyway. First you bitch because Windows is bloated, 'cause it still has all that backwards-compatibility code in it. I mean, who cares if people can still run DOS and Windows 3.1 programs anyway? Change it and get rid of the backward compatibility bloat! Besudes, it has all those security holes in it that haxers use!

    So then MS does get rid of some of the backward compatibility stuff for security reasons, and you bitch about the new security and it not running your old crapware applications; of course, the problem is that that crapware was written by other idiots who couldn't understand that when MS said "Don't save your settings or write to Program Files. Put stuff <here> instead", they meant it. Then you bitch about idiotic things like title bar gradients. You bitch about not being smart enough to adapt to the changes. And then, because you're a moron, you post a list by FSF (anti-MS for the most part) as your "evidence".

    If you had any intelligence whatsover, you'd understand that:

    • things change, usually for the better
    • you have to either be smart enough to adapt to the changes, or be stuck where you are
    • you have to be smart enough to make your own decisions and not rely on others to do it for you
    • posting a list of flaws in Windows written by a bunch of anti-MS rabble doesn't help your case. That's like saying "but slashdot.org says MS is evil" and expecting people to believe you know what you're talking about.



  • @KenW said:

    Nobody said anything about buying a new computer every year. My current laptop is two years old this month; it would probably run Vista, but not well. I'm smart enough to be able to figure that out. It only has a gig of RAM; I could increase it to double that, but I don't think the Radeon Mobile video card would have the performance. I'm pretty sure the 2 GHz AMD Turion 64 wouldn't be enough.
    The fact that the OS requires hardware like that but provides no other features that cannot be found in any other OS, especially when those other OSes are significantly lighter. Is there anything that Vista actually provides? No. Aero is really pretty but as I said I have theming off, the fact that my computer is still quite slow when reading from my 52X DVD drive is ridiculous (I will be upgrading to SP 1 today). Bidirectional firewalls are easily acquired if not already part of the kernel. UAC is nice, gksudo isn't as well implemented being a user-land utility but still does what it does well enough.



    Also, from looking at the "Personalize" menu, desktop background finally behaves sanely, it is no longer in a dialogue window, however everything else in that menu now appears as a single tabbed dialogue, which are not resizable though they do appear on the the task-bar. In fact most of the Control Panel Applets(?) still produce dialogues that seem to finally appear in the task bar, but still fail to resize, which as stated before, is really irritating when it has a scroll-bar and the resolution is large enough to cover it.



  • @Lingerance said:

    The fact that the OS requires hardware like that but provides no other features that cannot be found in any other OS
     

    Oh please. Linux cannot compare to Windows in the desktop arena. Get over it.

    Mac OS? Very nice, but still lacking.
    So you just think that you are right, and everyone else is wrong? Do you think market share numbers lie?

    @Lingerance said:

    especially when those other OSes are significantly lighter.

    Have you installed a full MacOSX installation on this 90's hardware you have? Is that where you got this from?

    @Lingerance said:

    Is there anything that Vista actually provides? No.

    Perhaps for you, since you obviously have no clue how to USE it. But again, credible people seem to disagree with you.

    @Lingerance said:

    the fact that my computer is still quite slow when reading from my 52X DVD drive is ridiculous

    The fact you bought a computer that ranked as 1.0 on the Vista compatibility scale is ridiculous too...

    @Lingerance said:

    Bidirectional firewalls are easily acquired if not already part of the kernel.

    So YOU do know that Vista has many new features then? Or no? Huh?

    @Lingerance said:

    UAC is nice, gksudo isn't as well implemented being a user-land utility but still does what it does well enough.

    But UAC  _is_ better...so what is your point? That other people do a pretty good job of being comparable to Windows? We all know you can use Linux as a replacement for Windows. You are not cool and trendy for being capable of this. In fact, in your position of whining and crying about everything MS related due to your obvious deficiencies in knowledge about Windows I would recommend you just move to Linux and forget about Windows. It would be a favor to us all. Somehow I still don't think that would solve your seemingly unending whining about the OS you know nothing about.

    @Lingerance said:

    Also, from looking at the "Personalize" menu, desktop background finally behaves sanely, it is no longer in a dialogue window, however everything else in that menu now appears as a single tabbed dialogue, which are not resizable though they do appear on the the task-bar. In fact most of the Control Panel Applets(?) still produce dialogues that seem to finally appear in the task bar, but still fail to resize, which as stated before, is really irritating when it has a scroll-bar and the resolution is large enough to cover it.

    Really, if you don't like it, just go to Linux and don't come back. After all, we all know how excellent and consistent the UI is on all things Linux, right? Ha!



  • @KenW said:

    Hmmm... Let's see. People bitched about Win95's UI, saying it was different from Win3.1. All the time people bitch here about XP's UI, and how Win98 was better. Then people bitch about Vista's UI, and now XP was better. So your point is basically "People bitch about change. Then they get used to it. Then they bitch about the next change. Then they get used to it." Right?
     

    This was my point exactly.  We went through this same bitching period when XP came out, and when 2000 came out, and so forth.  And I imagine Windows 7 will do the same thing.



  • @bstorer said:

    @KenW said:

    Hmmm... Let's see. People bitched about Win95's UI, saying it was different from Win3.1. All the time people bitch here about XP's UI, and how Win98 was better. Then people bitch about Vista's UI, and now XP was better. So your point is basically "People bitch about change. Then they get used to it. Then they bitch about the next change. Then they get used to it." Right?
     

    This was my point exactly.  We went through this same bitching period when XP came out, and when 2000 came out, and so forth.  And I imagine Windows 7 will do the same thing.

     

    Right. Just ask any IT/helpdesk guy how his OS changes go. 

    I have always been shocked/fascinated by how people can really have this much of a problem coping with change.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Oh please. Linux cannot compare to Windows in the desktop arena. Get over it.

    Mac OS? Very nice, but still lacking.

    The fact that you automatically presumed I was talking about MacOS and Linux is amusing, XP can have a most of the features the Vista offers through first of third party applications. As for the rest Linux user-land utilities have a number of the "pretty" "features". I have honestly never used MacOS X and have never made statements that suggest I have.
    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    Really, if you don't like it, just go to Linux and don't come back. After all, we all know how excellent and consistent the UI is on all things Linux, right? Ha!

    Again you are arguing against a statement I never made, I have never made the statement that Linux is a more consistent UI, nor have I made the statement that it is better than Windows in all aspects. I have only stated what I perceive as flaws of Vista which is that point of this thread, I have yet to state specifically that any one OS is better than another, they all have strengths, however they are all horrible crippled monstrosities that fail individually in numerous ways.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @Lingerance said:

    The fact that the OS requires hardware like that but provides no other features that cannot be found in any other OS
    Oh please. Linux cannot compare to Windows in the desktop arena. Get over it.
    Yes. And no.

    I currently use both linux (Slackware 12) and Windows XP (SP2) at home. I choose for Slackware, and that Slackware does not have foolproof noob interfaces. But it does give me a firm grip of the system. I'm a fan of Linux. I like it, but I didn't install it on my desktop machine until a few weeks ago.



    Now, from usebility standpoint:

    -XP boots faster. Might be that linux currently starts to many services and loads unneeded systems. But both at default configuration XP starts faster.

    -Linux comes with... just about everything. Only thing I needed to add myself was Wine and a bunch of games. Windows came just with microsoft stuff, but office needed to be installed, as well as anything else, from notepad replacement to compiler.

    -Linux fonts... suck. And because of some patent issues they will remain sucking for quite some time. You can update things (extra fonts, freetype2 with right compile options) but don't think any installer will do this for you.



    Overal, linux works just as fine as windows for me. Windows does a better job at running the latest games, while linux does a very good job at giving me development tools and massive amounts of tinkering freedom (and wine runs some games better then windows).



    Would I recommend Linux to the 'everage' user? No. As I see how much people struggle with basic windows useage. I wouldn't want to add the "*.exe does not run" problems on top of that.



    In the office? Maybe. Open Office works great. Combined with firefox for some browsing needs. And that's all most people would need. Most (lesser schooled) office personal wouldn't even notice. They do monkey work, learn them the trick and they do it. If the trick is with linux or windows they wouldn't care. There are quite a few differnt types of hammers, but most people would only see them as "A hammer" and hit nails with them.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    But again, credible
    people seem to disagree with you
    .

    While I agree with your points, referring to Wikipedia as "credible" strikes me as... unusual.



  • @KenW said:

    @zzo38 said:

    I do dislike the default background (I dislike the default XP background as well, so I just made it no background picture instead), but not liking the default background is no reason not to use Vista (that that is why it isn't on the list), it can easily be corrected. There are real reasons not to use Vista but the default background isn't one of them. Actually I didn't like the graphics of XP either but if you select "adjust for best performance" it makes it better and also faster. Title bar gradients can also be easily removed and that is what I did, many of the things I don't want can easily be removed. And, XP does not have a lot of incompatibility, as much as Vista does! At least XP is not hard to understand like Vista is. I have used Vista before on other people's computers so I do know how bad it is, and the FSF just confirms that belief.
     

    You're still spewing nonsense.

    You're another one of the Linux fanboi idiots who hasn't got a clue what they're talking about and continues to babble on anyway. First you bitch because Windows is bloated, 'cause it still has all that backwards-compatibility code in it. I mean, who cares if people can still run DOS and Windows 3.1 programs anyway? Change it and get rid of the backward compatibility bloat! Besudes, it has all those security holes in it that haxers use!

    So then MS does get rid of some of the backward compatibility stuff for security reasons, and you bitch about the new security and it not running your old crapware applications; of course, the problem is that that crapware was written by other idiots who couldn't understand that when MS said "Don't save your settings or write to Program Files. Put stuff <here> instead", they meant it. Then you bitch about idiotic things like title bar gradients. You bitch about not being smart enough to adapt to the changes. And then, because you're a moron, you post a list by FSF (anti-MS for the most part) as your "evidence".

    If you had any intelligence whatsover, you'd understand that:

    • things change, usually for the better
    • you have to either be smart enough to adapt to the changes, or be stuck where you are
    • you have to be smart enough to make your own decisions and not rely on others to do it for you
    • posting a list of flaws in Windows written by a bunch of anti-MS rabble doesn't help your case. That's like saying "but slashdot.org says MS is evil" and expecting people to believe you know what you're talking about.


    Maybe you didn't read my message very clearly. I wasn't complaining about the title bar gradients, I just said I didn't like them, that's different. I easily removed the gradients that I didn't like and I don't have a complaint about it. And, yes there are good thing about it as well, and wrong thing, read message 8315/157694 that I posted also. I do understand "Don't save your settings or write to Program Files. Put stuff <here> instead", and that is a good idea, it does make sense. However some prorgams don't like that, I can change the security setting for individual directory/file to fix specific things. I don't bitch because it still has all those backwards-compatibility code in it. I do use DOS programs and Windows 3.1 programs still. I do have intelligence but I am still different than other people and I do understand, just sometimes I don't write very well. (Maybe "evidence" is the wrong word for describing the FSF list, but I don't know a better one) Really it is because you don't understand what I am writing about, probably because I don't write good. So, therefore, the real problem is that I don't write good. I did a professional IQ test from a professional psychologist (I do understand that it is just a close estimate, but the professional psychologist ones are still much better than other one), and I got way above average in many things, average in many things, the only low mark I got was, in common sense I got the worst possible mark ever.



  • @zzo38 said:

    I did a professional IQ test from a professional psychologist (I do understand that it is just a close estimate, but the professional psychologist ones are still much better than other one), and I got way above average in many things, average in many things, the only low mark I got was, in common sense I got the worst possible mark ever.
     

    If this is some sort of joke, it's a dismal one.  If not, I have no idea what you're talking about.  I'm aware of no IQ test that scores common sense, for a variety of reasons.



  • @zzo38 said:

    I did a professional IQ test from a professional psychologist (I do understand that it is just a close estimate, but the professional psychologist ones are still much better than other one), and I got way above average in many things, average in many things, the only low mark I got was, in common sense I got the worst possible mark ever.
     

    Wow. This must be SpectateSwamp's other personality,



  • @RayS said:

    Let's be fair here, that is from Dell maketing, and guess what? They're trying to upsell. Even when Vista came out, nobody sold equipment matching the first column. "Hey, wanna run Vista? Buy one of our new PCs!!!". Remember this is all marketing, and marketing is what gives us crap like this and "Pentium III speeds up ur internetz!!!"
     

    I understand that.  But how do you explain the internal e-mails from MS?  By their own admission, they screwed up the Vista-capable marketing.  Concerning the class-action lawsuit against MS, it has come to light that certain weak Intel integrated graphics models were originally not going to be certified for Vista; MS wanted to do them a "favour", so they added the weak models to the list.

    http://gizmodo.com/362102/vista-capable-laptops-sucked-so-intel-could-dump-crappy-graphics-chips

    They weren't oblivious to the fact that "Vista capable" machines were horrible—but they let it slide, according to exec John Kalkman:

    "To help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded."

     

    "The '915' chipset which is not Aero capable is in a huge number of laptops and was tagged as 'Vista Capable' but not Vista Premium. I don't know if this was a good call. But these function but will never be great. Even a 945 set has new builds of drivers coming out constantly but hopes are on the next chipset rather than this one."
    One exec, Mike Ybarra, actually did stand up against this bit of complacent bullshit: "We are allowing Intel to drive our consumer experience...I don't understand why we would cave on this..."

     

     

    I really don't see why MS gets a pass on this from everyone.  

     



  • @CodeSimian said:

    I really don't see why MS gets a pass on this from everyone.
    Neither do I, to be honest.  The coverage of this has been surprisingly low, even on Slashdot.



  • @CodeSimian said:

    I really don't see why MS gets a pass on this from everyone.  
     

    Is this the first time you have seen marketing make false claims and lead customers down the wrong path?


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