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I disagree.

This is not another "Vista Sux" article. The authors are clear at the beginning that there are a lot features in Vista to like, and the authors seems to me to be highly-savvy Windows users. I took the article to be just another tips 'n tricks article for power users, with a few gripes about price and DRM thrown in.

This article is written by Windows users for Windows users. Most of the "Vista Sux" articles are written by Linux/Mac users for other Linux/Mac users so they can all smile smugly. This is not what I see in this article.

fair point. I have to admit i only glanced at the article and was a little too quick to dismiss it.

Well, you've just shown yourself how flamewars work.

Except he admitted he made a mistake, which many people won't do.

Only because your answer was decent enough. Someone else could give some harsh answer before you did, and all the flamewar would start.

Edited 2007-02-20 22:27

Yes, I agree. It's an article written by Windows user for Windows users. But the conclusions are quite the same:

- Only Vista Ultimate is a real upgrade. And it's far too expensive: $400 in the USA, $780 (!) in the EU (with that price I guess they assume they're not going to sell many -if any at all- original boxed copies in the EU).

- Pros: Nice interface. Desktop search. Better security (?)

- Cons: Too many annoyances (UAC and Graphic cards drivers being the most important).

I guess Mac/Linux users aren't going to switch to Windows Vista. But are Windows users going to upgrade to it? Looks to me like only uninformed ones will upgrade (to be disappointed), but the rest will wait quite a bit before doing it (or will even consider a switch to Mac/Linux).

You on the MS payroll? ;-)

When it comes to average end users, 1 bad visual problem can easily outweigh 5 hidden improvements.

(The average user could care less about NUMA or if the networking stack was rewritten.)

You on the MS payroll? ;-)

*sigh* I wish

When it comes to average end users, 1 bad visual problem can easily outweigh 5 hidden improvements.

Sure, that's why Vista unfortunately has no real contenders (OSX is tied to specific hardware and Linux desktops is one giant visual problem)

Edited 2007-02-21 00:44

Nobody said between different OSes. More like staying with XP or upgrading to Vista.

I guess I better not admit I have OS X running on a dual core Opteron. :-P (Yes I bought it)

You BASTARDs!

Sure, that's why Vista unfortunately has no real contenders (OSX is tied to specific hardware and Linux desktops is one giant visual problem)


says who?
it shows where?


bye,
[L]

"Sure, that's why Vista unfortunately has no real contenders (OSX is tied to specific hardware and Linux desktops is one giant visual problem)"

I want to add to that, Windows Vista is tied to specific hardware too, known as x86.

More correct would be to say, that as a consumer you have more choice among this subset of hardware. Linux supports even more hardware, e.g. you can install Debian on x86, PowerPC or you can install specialized distributions on things as diverse as iPods, Palms, PS3's, Blade Servers, etc.

Edited 2007-02-21 09:40

It's $500 in Denmark for Vista Business according to EDBPriser.dk

Why not? I guess many Mac and Linux users will switch to Vista, while few Windows users will switch to Mac and nobody to Linux.

You have to remember one very important fact: most if not all Mac and Linux users are using an OS they choose to begin with. And there are no Mac or Linux users who have no experience with Windows.

"Many" switching to Windows? I doubt that. Most of the "new" Vista features have been available on OS X & Linux for some time, so basically switching would involve: Windows (which both kinds users didn't like to begin with) + features they have been using in their current OS of choice for a while + a hefty price tag.

Again, many?

With "solutions" like this to Vista's problems?
"UAC can be switched off if it annoys you."

It's sad to say this, but this article, recommending to turn off UAC, shows that the latest Apple Ad called "Security" actually has it right.

You have to remember one very important fact: most if not all Mac and Linux users are using an OS they choose to begin with. And there are no Mac or Linux users who have no experience with Windows.

There is no evidence this two statements are true (or wrong).

"Many" switching to Windows? I doubt that. Most of the "new" Vista features have been available on OS X & Linux for some time,

In Linux some features are there, many are half-baked for a long time (such as Beagle, wireless/upnp networking), some completely missing (such as HD Video support). OSX is somewhat better, but again, it's tied to Apple's own hardware, which most users don't like or want.

so basically switching would involve: Windows (which both kinds users didn't like to begin with) + features they have been using in their current OS of choice for a while + a hefty price tag.

It would involve realization of how great and more consistent Vista is (on friends computer, for instance), knowing it cost only $200 for a whole new OS, buying (or probably downloading) and switching to it.


With "solutions" like this to Vista's problems?

That's not solution for Vista problem (because there is no problem), but for a user who is not used to non-admin running mode.

"In Linux some features are there, many are half-baked for a long time (such as Beagle, wireless/upnp networking), some completely missing (such as HD Video support)." - You are completely wrong... Myth(tv) in linux supports HD Video. Probably you are confusing HDTV with MS DRM?

Myth(tv) in linux supports HD Video.

I mean protected Blu-ray/HD-DVD HD video, not just any HD mpeg-2/mpeg-4 stream (it's not that it's impossible to implement, though, if some company will create Linux software player with DRM implemented)

Beagle is not exactly half-baked. UPNP networking works fine. You're right about wireless networking but XP is no better in that regard.

The price is $500 in Denmark, for an inconsistent, slow and un-userfriendly system.

UPNP networking works fine

I've experienced a number of issues with libupnp/ushare which I managed to fix only by digging the forums and jumping through hoops.

The price is $500 in Denmark, for an inconsistent, slow and un-userfriendly system.

Linux costs $500 in Denmark?!

Qiuick google search leads to this link:
http://www.gate2prices.dk/software/software-vis.asp?Kode=S000855
If my currency converter is right, Vista Ultimate OEM is $250 in Denmark.

"Why not? I guess many Mac and Linux users will switch to Vista, while few Windows users will switch to Mac and nobody to Linux."

Nobody, huh?

You're off by at least 20,000:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/30/HNpeugeotlinux_1.html

"Nobody, huh?

You're off by at least 20,000:"

Make that +50 000 Brazilians:

http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/07/02/13/1933232.shtml

And +1 for myself :p

Make that +50 000 Brazilians:

As I understand, those Brazilians were _forced_ to use Linux by goverment program. That's actually a good thing, since I believe all goverments should switch to FOSS/open standarts regardless if commercial solutions are better or worse. Hovewer that particular issue is not related to my post, because it was about which OS people would _voluntarily_ choose to switch to.

Visual Studio 2005 is also bloated and slow and useless in reality.

The same goes for eclipse, monodevelop, Borland Delphi 2005 and whatever you can find. They simply tend to be buttslow and bloated.

Of course Borland Delphi 3 (or C++ Builder) is quite fast, but you don't want to go there

Visual Studio 6 is quite fast too, but you don't wanna go there either

OpenOffice.org being the el-supremo example of crap-o-la software

OO.o 2.0 is a very good office suite. The only thing missing (for me) is Outline Mode, and work has started on implementing this.

And, yes, I'm a MS Word "advanced user".

Oh, and btw, I would move to Linux; too bad the applications I want aren't available, and the alternatives are absolutely crap; OpenOffice.org being the el-supremo example of crap-o-la software; but hey, its from Sun, bloated and slow, just like their development studio written in Java.

*****YAWN*****

Again with the same old story....

DO NOT MOAN TO US, WE KNOW AND AGREE

Start that petition !!

Blogger please, enough already. Uninformed people (according to you) would upgrade and even if disappointed will stay with it. The rest will just stay with XP and not even consider switching to *nix/mac. Period.

UAC, only annoying if you leave the full screen prompt on. Switch that off and it's not soo bad to live with.

Graphics drivers, not a problem here. Used both the windows wddm drivers and ATI's drivers. Working great.

All drivers are working great and my usual progs are buzzing along. And this is on a somewhat unsupported platform, a mac.

Call me uninformed and impressed here.

Even the extremelly basic Basic edition sells for 390 $. And they are surprised that Vista's sales are lower than expected? Wow...

Well, that's the point of most of the Software industry. New versions of just about any software product are a means of funding the activity of that company. Otherwise, they would have to switch to a subscription service. There really is no compelling reason to buy Vista. However, the reality is that Microsoft has to make money, so eventually XP will be deprecated and the unsupported. This is an endless game. And you have to admin, it's been 6 YEARS! Microsoft cannot afford to freely fix XP forever (just like 2000, 98, etc before).

Incidentally, even though you're not paying, this is true in the Free (libre) software world. Evetually you're current version of Linux slides into "unsupported" status and you have to make a choice - upgade or risk obsolescence. I know a company that still uses Fedora Core 1. It worked fine for them, but they eventually had to make a choice to upgrade or risk using unsupported software (no security updates for instance).

True, they have to pay the 70k employee payroll somehow.

Still, it's bogus. XP is probably a 90+% complete product at this point. It has a decent track record, more and more companies are supporting it. Few problems with older hardware. Haven't heard too much about iloveyou's and Blaster variants in the past couple of years.

Vista is a step backward just to force people to upgrade hardware needlessly. Even with UAC whining like my 3 year old, you still need to run the standard security apps as you do in XP. Integrated search can be done in XP with 3rd party software. All that fancy "flip" and ugly UI garbage can be done with more 3rd party apps, I'm sure. DX10 is really the only reason for home users to get Vista.

Fact is, this is probably the first time that Microsoft released a version of Windows and the majority of users said, "Why?"

What makes you think you still need to use security apps? I mean, you could assume that because you've been using security apps before and they've found things, but how do you know 'a priori' that you still need that stuff?

There are lots of under-the-hood enhancements in Vista. What else is an OS really supposed to have? Remember, it's a platform for people to write software on. It won't happen immediately, but surely when Vista takes over there will be software that uses its features fully and won't run on XP. That represents progress because that software will probably be doing things in a better way:
perhaps it will use the new visuals,
perhaps it will be safer,
perhaps it will use the transactional features in the filesystem to safely modify its files without corruption,
perhaps people's problems will be solved automatically or more quickly through the new diagnostics frameworks in Vista.

But what is an OS really supposed to do? What do you expect that is not in Windows and cannot be gotten by addons? If you think of something, is it generally useful and non-conflicting with other requirements?

I'm tired of the hardware requirements card.

Hardware has always been getting cheaper. Why do you think that trend will suddenly stop? Why should someone write an OS for old hardware, when the old OS works just fine on that old hardware?

Vista has high requirements in the memory department, but nothing else is that surprising. On the other hand, given enough memory Vista starts up and launches applications faster than XP with the same memory. Sure, wasting cycles is bad, and I don't recommend running Vista on your PDA. But, given that Vista actually runs just as fast as XP on its target hardware and is faster at many tasks, what's your beef?

I haven't tried linux on my hardware to see how the speed compares. I'm looking forward to offloading some files and trying it out soon.

Hardware may have become cheaper, but that is not the issue. I just checked laptop and desktop systems at a major brick and mortar retailer over the holiday. I have two observations.

1. Any version of Vista is a memory hog
2. Boxed copies of Vista are expensive.

On the first point; Vista Home Basic, the stripped version, was using 70 percent of the RAM (512MB) without any applications running. In other words just to run System processes, IDLE, it consumed 70 percent of the RAM. Checking out systems with 1GB RAM, it was using 48 to 51 percent of the RAM while IDLE, no applications running. So hardware is an issue, and this is with the least resource intensive version, Home Basic.

On point two; the reason the prices are higher than posters are acknowledging are the requirements to upgrade to the preferred versions of Vista. Just read the boxes in the stores, I did, and you will see there are conditions on upgrading. You almost have to go with OEM install or full install, because of the many conditions on upgrading.

Saying that RAM is inexpensive does not help, since the machines are being sold with the minimun specifications Microsoft suggests for Vista, and retailers will not add RAM without a hefty fee. Most casual users do not add components that require opening the case, and will not be aware that Vista needs 1GB to be tolerable and 2GB to work
as well as their XP systems.

Edited 2007-02-21 04:41

1.5 GB is quite adequate for me. You're right about the lack of RAM in retail machines. But the users who buy those probably won't notice or care that things take a few seconds to launch. And once apps are up, things will be fast enough.

I agree that less than 1GB is pretty bad.

Oh cmon not everybody can afford so called cheaper hardware and why should people fill the landfills
with more perfectly operating older computers to make Microsoft richer. a lot of us will stay with xp or older
until a new computer is needed. vista speed HA this 98e
is much faster on lesser hardware.

There are a number of settings that got buried deeper for no apparent reason. I use Windows Mobility Center for quick access to most of the things I want to change on a regular basis.

How disturbing! Out of 750 people none of you have interest in learning and research? And even for FREE? Do you work for some branch of a government that still uses typewriters?

On the contrary, I work for a good sized consulting firm, we were told NOT to install Vista yet because of our [crappy] vpn implementation and various legacy apps. However a quarter of us use Vista anyway. The majority of us feel it is very important to be on the edge of the industry even at the expense of inconvenience.

Yes I am an early adopter, yes I know most people aren't. Yes I know my stance is more rewarding.

Good day.

No. I work in a company where uptime is important.
We need our computers to work flawlessly.

At the minute, 90% use WIndows 2000, the rest use XP.
The servers are a mixture of Solaris and Debian.

At home, around 70% use XP, 10% use Linux, and the rest dual boot between both.

We were offered Vista for free, but instead, decided to install it on test machines in work.

PCs that we ourselves do not own.

Like I said. We like to keep working and value our PCs.

Even people who were getting excited by the upcoming release of Vista said no when they heard how bad it actually was.

People will turn it off because its annoying, not because any article said to. Same way people always use to run as administrator.

I wouldn't say this is unnecessarily perpetuating something that isn't true. If a feature is designed poorly that users will turn it off, then this is a design problem. MS can do better and hopefully they will.

Heh, I know that model. I'm pleased to know I'm not the only one being slow to upgrade to the latest new wonder

I upgraded to Win2K in 2004. Win2K3 in late 2005 (or was it early 2006? I've forgotten now). I doubt I'll upgrade to Vista, but perhaps ReactOS around v. 0.7.x will be tested (0.2.x was fun, but not useful).

I'll stick to Win2K3 as long as possible, and when it is time to upgrade, I hope OS'es has become deprecated in favour of true cross-platform applications (or I'll have to switch to ReactOS).

Getting it to index other locations is not straightforward.

I tried to add an entire separate drive which I keep documents on, and a day later, none of the content had been indexed.

Hmm.. Weird. OTOH, having it not indexed is probably no worse than having beagled-helper running at 67-75% for a week, trying frantically to index your Thunderbird mailboxes

WRITING IN ALL CAPS IS AKIN TO SHOUTING AND IS CONSIDERED RUDE.

Thank you.

I was shouting at MS, sorry.