Thoughts on Vista/What is Your Problem With Vista

[hynesy]

Great link jtucker1, the author hit the nail on the head . Altho I think I can forsee a microsoft hater countering with an article from another source

 

[jtickner1]

yeah i thought it was a good read

 

[rickk1]

I bought a new dell about 7 months ago and had ordered Vista Home on it. After using it for 4 months and continually having problems readjusting myself to it, I opted to remove it and to replace it with xp-pro. The main things I hated about Vista was the new windows explorer configuration, it was a power hungry monster, the control panel changed which made it tougher to make changes, that moronic user-permissions popup which was disabled but the security center constantly sent me messages that the user-permission had been disabled.

I also hated the fact that vista's windows mail was not compatible with outlook express although outlook express was compatible with Vista.

Vista's windows mail was an eyesore too. Previously in xp, I would locate and clear-out the .dbx files under outlook express and was able to do so with ease since outlook express listed the folders separately whereas vista did not list them at all. Windows mail was one big screwup in my opinion. If you had a problem with a message in windows mail, you had to clear out all the messages just to find the one giving the problem whereas in xp's outlook express, you merely went to the .dbx folder and cleared out its contents only which let you keep your other messages.

IE7 was a big eyesore too. I used it for about a week and hated it since it had 2 functions missing that I used all the time in IE6. Those 2 functions were not listed and is still not listed as add-ons for IE7. They were the mail tab on the toolbar which allowed the user to send mail without opening up the entire email program. The other function was the pictures toolbar that showed up when the mouse hovered over a pic.

Changing the fonts and other settings on the display used to be really simple in XP. All the tabs were in 1 place and not all over the place as they are in Vista.

Being in the computer repair business, I've heard from many clients that wished they would have purchased xp instead of vista. I've yet to hear from anyone that I personally know that likes Vista. Everyone has had problems with it. To me, Vista is another Windows-ME. Hopefully, Microsoft will see the light at the end of the tunnel and realize they screwed up. XP is by far the most user-friendly operating system I've ever used and VISTA has to be one of the most moronic, confusing, user-unfriendly operating system that I hope to never see again...ever!

I almost forgot another problem with Vista. It is the defragger. What a joke! You're better off to get a free defragger from download.com such as auslogic.

 

[AlbertLionheart]

Microsoft may well see the light, but they have so much invested in this both in terms of cash and credibility that they will find it difficult to back off on the thing. What galls me is the problem we have if we want to tell MS that we think it is garbage - and we are supposed to be part of the feedback structure they rely on. Pah! Who said what about blinkers??

 

[retexan599]

I like my Vista

I bought a new dell about 7 months ago and had ordered Vista Home on it. After using it for 4 months and continually having problems readjusting myself to it, I opted to remove it and to replace it with xp-pro. The main things I hated about Vista was the new windows explorer configuration, it was a power hungry monster, the control panel changed which made it tougher to make changes, that moronic user-permissions popup which was disabled but the security center constantly sent me messages that the user-permission had been disabled.

I also hated the fact that vista's windows mail was not compatible with outlook express although outlook express was compatible with Vista.

Vista's windows mail was an eyesore too. Previously in xp, I would locate and clear-out the .dbx files under outlook express and was able to do so with ease since outlook express listed the folders separately whereas vista did not list them at all. Windows mail was one big screwup in my opinion. If you had a problem with a message in windows mail, you had to clear out all the messages just to find the one giving the problem whereas in xp's outlook express, you merely went to the .dbx folder and cleared out its contents only which let you keep your other messages.

IE7 was a big eyesore too. I used it for about a week and hated it since it had 2 functions missing that I used all the time in IE6. Those 2 functions were not listed and is still not listed as add-ons for IE7. They were the mail tab on the toolbar which allowed the user to send mail without opening up the entire email program. The other function was the pictures toolbar that showed up when the mouse hovered over a pic.

Changing the fonts and other settings on the display used to be really simple in XP. All the tabs were in 1 place and not all over the place as they are in Vista.

Being in the computer repair business, I've heard from many clients that wished they would have purchased xp instead of vista. I've yet to hear from anyone that I personally know that likes Vista. Everyone has had problems with it. To me, Vista is another Windows-ME. Hopefully, Microsoft will see the light at the end of the tunnel and realize they screwed up. XP is by far the most user-friendly operating system I've ever used and VISTA has to be one of the most moronic, confusing, user-unfriendly operating system that I hope to never see again...ever!

I almost forgot another problem with Vista. It is the defragger. What a joke! You're better off to get a free defragger from download.com such as auslogic.

My Vista Home Premium feels and acts very nimble and intuitive to me. I had been an XP user for five years, and W95 before that. To me it is a slightly different way of doing things, but a lot of it is better. Once I figured out how Automatic Backup was to work, and bought an external hard drive for the purpose, backups are much simpler than XP. User Permissions help protect me from myself. My Windows Mail folders/files are all right there in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail\Local Folders (1) and newsgroups in \news.microsoft.com. I am maintaining my Mail Store equally well to XP. And I like that the defragger works by itself in the background, one less thing for me to fool with. Sorry you don't like it, but no going back to XP for me. Take a little more time with it and you will not want to go back either.

 

[rickk1]

What you just said about user permissions does not make sense. You said you like it cause it protects you against yourself.

XP had this too but it was not as lame. In XP, if you felt like you needed to protect your computer from yourself, all you had to do then was to open control panel, select user accounts and then create another user account for yourself but make it a limited account.

I know where vista kept its windows mail folders. You missed the point. Vista was limited. In outlook express, if you have custom or non-customized folders and you wanted to clear out only those messages that you sent, for example, all you had to do was to locate the .dbx files and open them using a program such as wordpad then selecting the folder you wanted to clear out then opening it then selecting all within it then clearing it out then saving that change. This did not wipeout any of the other remaining folders within outlook express.

However, in Vista, this is not true. In order to clear out one of your folders, you must clear out the entire windows mail system. It does not let you keep those emails you wish you keep in your folders.

Plus, vista is not backward compatible with outlook express whereas outlook express is compatible with vista.

Backups were the same in xp as they are in vista. I've been doing automated backups using xp and vista and have found no differences if you use the automated software provided by the external hard drive.

Will I ever use Vista again? Probably not! Ummm...let me rephrase that...Definitely NOT!

 

[Mirob]

Never say never, sp1 is coming.

 

[Tmagic650]

I knew Vista SP1 was on the horizon

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Some info on the Vista sp1 beta release can be found HERE, if anyones interested.

If you do a search for Vista sp1, you`ll get a feel for what can be expected.

Regards Howard

 

[link590o]

y'know, surprisingly enough, i already stumbled across that somewhere else. it was a fairly interesting read. hope that SP2 is a lot better though.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

hope that SP2 is a lot better though.

Yes, I hope so too. Maybe that`s when I`ll start using Vista.

Until I read the article, I thought that sp1 was the answer, but it seems as if that might not be the case now.

Regards Howard

 

[rickk1]

I still will not use Vista. XP is supposed to be supported until 2014 which is 7 years from now. Hopefully, someone will make a better mousetrap by then and Vista will have plunged into the throes of Win-Me where it belongs.

 

[halo71]

Hopefully, someone will make a better mousetrap by then and Vista will have plunged into the throes of Win-Me where it belongs.

That is funny but I don't think Vista and Me will ever go down in the same boat!

 

[LNCPapa]

It's okay - similar things were said about XP when it first released. By the time everyone has switched over to using 7 those complaining about it will probably all be running Vista.

 

[rickk1]

Let's face it. Microsoft constantly creates operating systems. In 7 years when xp support ends, Microsoft will have created other, better operating systems to replace the horrible Vista. Dell still sells new computers with XP and I don't think any of the others are doing so. This is one of the reasons why their sales are #1. Microsoft doesn't like it but who cares what Microsoft likes? I sure don't! All they did was build a different mousetrap that was definitely not any better than the one they're trying to replace. Think about it! The last time Microsoft built a dud that they thought was a hot item was Windows-Me. Now, they've done it once more....Vista!

What they should have done was to build a service pack 3 for xp. Perhaps somewhere in the future, Microsoft or some other operating system manufacturer will build a better operating system that does not need lots and lots of constant updates to fix those items they fail to look for when creating the newer supposedly better system.

 

[halo71]

rickk1, What specs on the computer you used? Just curious. I think a lot of the people having issues with Vista are more hardware related. At least from what I have seen so far.

 

[AlbertLionheart]

MS are not going to bin this thing - it has cost too much. What we are seeing is the model for just about everything coming out of MS in the future. That is unless we all go Linux - not very likely!

 

[howard_hopkinso]

I agree Albert.

Microsoft isn`t going to bin Vista, nor do I think they should.

As has already been said. Windows XP suffered a lot of the same criticism when it was first released.

The rest is history.

Regards Howard

 

[rickk1]

I had problems getting around the system. Remember xp's display tabs that showed themes, desktop, screensaver, etc.? Vista shows only 1 tab and it was not useful at all. The others were eventually found but why move them and make life more difficult? I also had problems getting around the reconfigured windows explorer. I hated the user-permission function and when it was turned off, I then got bombarded with popups from the security center telling me it was turned off. I finally figured out how to stop those popups. I also had problems with Windows Mail. I like to go into the backdoor and clear out the sent, outbox, inbox, and deleted folders from time to time to keep my system clean. Vista did not allow that to happen under the newer windows mail system. If you wanted to clear out any messages from the back door, you would end up clearing out all messages. There was no way around it. I recall Microsoft stating that Vista would not have to be rebooted as often as xp or other systems upon installing updates. I then found out that Microsoft lied. During the entire 4 months that I used Vista, everytime I got an update from Microsoft, my system had to be rebooted. It also bugged me to reboot several times and then without warning, it rebooted itself without warning and I lost an important 14 page document that I had been working on at the time.

As a computer repair technician, I found other problems too and they're just too numerous to mention. So, I opted to remove Vista and to go back to the familiar more stable xp-pro. Removing Vista was not an easy task since it would only allow a quick format and it would not allow me to totally erase some system files. I finally removed the hard drive and did a temporary external install through usb and then used another computer running xp and used the admin settings then disk management to finally repartition and format the hard drive.

I bought Vista preinstalled on a Dell E520 Dimension, 4gb ram, 320gb hdd, 256mb video card, dvd-rw, 20"wide flatpanel monitor, netgear wireless router.

 

[AlbertLionheart]

Maybe we are all too keen to go back to the XP comfort zone. We have been messing with it professionally or otherwise for years and now we are presented with something new, we don't like it!
I have installed Vista on a new system and had all sorts of problems with drivers and, for example F-Secure. It is just too much hassle when XP still does what I need, and talking/networking with others seems to show that this is a common attitude to the thing.

 

[rickk1]

If you're calling me and others keen for staying or going back to xp's comfort zone, then so be it. I don't see it as being keen, I see it as getting my work done more effeciently and faster without problems cropping up every now and then that must be dealt with at that time. I still say Vista is just another Windows-Me!

 

[Fiery_WA]

Personally I hate XP, too much eye candy (yes I am aware it can be reset to look like for example 98se) Vista from what I understand is still in the testing stages.

And although Microflaced will stop supporting Windows 2000 in 2010, I have found it to be one of the most stable operating systems I have used. And a side benefit of using Win2k, is I have four standalone PC's all of which can be loaded with the same CD Key.


LONG LIVE WINDOWS 2000 PRO!!!!!!

 

[steelfatboy]

Let me start by saying, I like Vista and I'm currently running Vista Ultimate x64. I have tweaked, kicked and fought it into the best OS I have used.

Vista's problem is that out of the box, it feels unresponsive, it nags you and it consumes way too many resources. Driver support has also been a huge problem. It does require much beefier hardware than XP and I would suggest 2gb of RAM for optimal performance. But the complaints against Vista are similar to the ones made against XP when it debuted.

And, in no way, is Vista a problem like Windows ME. The kernel of Vista is far more stable than ME ever dreamed of being. Vista should not have been released when it was, it needed a couple more release candidates, I think. In time, Vista will be better than XP. For those of us who like to tweak our OS to the extreme, it already is.

 

[mattfrompa]

Let me start by saying, I like Vista and I'm currently running Vista Ultimate x64. I have tweaked, kicked and fought it into the best OS I have used.

Vista's problem is that out of the box, it feels unresponsive, it nags you and it consumes way too many resources. Driver support has also been a huge problem. It does require much beefier hardware than XP and I would suggest 2gb of RAM for optimal performance. But the complaints against Vista are similar to the ones made against XP when it debuted.

And, in no way, is Vista a problem like Windows ME. The kernel of Vista is far more stable than ME ever dreamed of being. Vista should not have been released when it was, it needed a couple more release candidates, I think. In time, Vista will be better than XP. For those of us who like to tweak our OS to the extreme, it already is.

as someone who is looking for any suggestions to help improve the reception of Vista, would you be able to provide me with at least some of what you have done to tweak the os?

 

[steelfatboy]

as someone who is looking for any suggestions to help improve the reception of Vista, would you be able to provide me with at least some of what you have done to tweak the os?

I will be happy to. But, please take note, not all my suggestions will be right for everyone. I am a computer tech and I am comfortable running without safety nets.

First, I disabled the user account control (UAC). Next, I adjusted startup items using msconfig. I disabled everything I could. After that, I tackled services. I researched the ones I didn't know and disabled quite a few. Others I set to manual. For example, I turned off all indexing and search helper services. I rarely need to search my computer for anything and it didn't slow down the search that much. I did leave superfetch and readyboost turned on. I have a 4gb flash card I use for readyboost. I turned off system restore and shadow copies. Basically, I wanted as little disk activity as possible. I uninstalled windows defender (awful program) and disabled the windows firewall and security center. I use Kaspersky Internet Security but I only installed it's firewall. I turned off the windows sidebar and use Objectdock instead. I turned off some of the eye candy, such as the items that fade or slide. I turned off the windows animations too.

Many of the things I have disabled are Vista "features" that I don't really need or want. In essence, I am returning it to a state more like XP. However, I like the look of Vista better and I have actually found it more stable than XP.

If you need details, on what I did exactly, perhaps I should make my own thread. Feel free to PM me with any questions.