Linked by David Adams on Wed 23rd Apr 2008 16:31 UTC, submitted by CIozzio
Everyone's been talking for what feels like an eternity about Vista being a major blunder, and everyone has their theories as to why it happened. So why would John C. Dvorak be any different? He's got 11 reasons why the OS was destined to flop.
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Member since:2005-06-29
...Other than that it's interface is too busy and many "features" are purely for cosmetics and not usability, often having the opposite effect on both sides.
The few times I've used Vista -- mostly when setting up a friend's new computer with AV/anti-malware programs -- it's been a UI nightmare for me. It seems almost as if they changed the most user-friendly aspects of XP and left in the crap. All the added "bling" from Aero and the new window decorations succeed in making it look even less professional than the Luna theme in XP.
Aesthetics aside, I've noticed a trend among name-brand PCs with Vista preinstalled. The cheaper HP and Dell systems which are barely a bump up from last year's XP machines are horribly slow under even Vista Basic, and the midrange systems that have all new technology still lag a bit under Vista Premium. An example: A friend bought an HP system with a dual core processor, 2GB of RAM, a fast SATA drive, a midrange nVidia 8xxx series video card and a 1GHz system bus. It absolutely crawled under Vista Premium even after removing all the bloatware installed by the manufacturer. It boggles the mind that my three year old eMac is snappier and more responsive than that new PC. Even when I had Ubuntu and XP on a 2005-era Compaq laptop I had better responsiveness than this new system.
I don't think I could ever invest in such a backwards OS and not feel incredibly stupid for doing so.
Member since:2007-12-16
"Tried" is a key word here. I have prepared empty NTFS/HPFS active primary partition on my hard drive for Vista but it kept saying that it couldn't find a partition that could be used for install, I have recreated it and formatted from Vista partitioning utility but it didn't help. I figured that it might not like other operating systems sitting there given the previous Microsoft OS record.
I remember trying out the new Windows Server 2008. I couldn't get it accept my NTFS partition until I formatted the other one where I had FreeBSD installed on.
1. Driver support *should* have been much better. This is NOT Microsoft's fault, but lazy driver vendors who should be shot and court martialled at dawn...
What I've read it seems the blame is on both sides. Manufacturers trusted too much on Microsoft failing to deliver once again, but afterwards they found out Microsoft just failed at providing sane APIs which meant they were all screwed up. Creative had to invent this bubble gum fix called Alchemy (the name tells it all, I believe) and nVidia is still in trouble, I hear.
Member since:2005-09-15
"They should have shortened the animation time though because little delays everywhere are very distracting. "
No kidding. Those delays happen even with aero shut off though. It's just stupid the delays Vista has. It's as if the OS is deciding it should comply. "Hmm should I open that folder? hmmmm... open.... take sweet time loading"
Whereas in XP and Ubuntu click - bam - "what do you want me to do next sir?"
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Member since:
2005-07-17
I have tried Vista just after it was released with pirated copy of Ultimate. It was very slow to install and work, even with all the drivers. I gave up fast - my Athlon64 3500+ with 1GB of RAM seemed to be to slow and I was quite content with all the modern features provided by Ubuntu.
This time it went little further but crapped out just few seconds later with error saying that it couldn't find vaild system volume. On a drive that it just formatted and had all for itself.
) but problems I have brought in this comment are mostly showstoppers for me.
I have tried installing Vista yesterday again (this time on Athlon64 X2 5000+ @3GHz with 2GB of RAM, reasonably powerful computer IMHO) as I support my relatives and friends computers often and some of them are moving to Vista since SP1 was released.
"Tried" is a key word here. I have prepared empty NTFS/HPFS active primary partition on my hard drive for Vista but it kept saying that it couldn't find a partition that could be used for install, I have recreated it and formatted from Vista partitioning utility but it didn't help. I figured that it might not like other operating systems sitting there given the previous Microsoft OS record.
So I've got my old empty ATA HDD from my "ancient hardware" and useless wires drawer
I gave up on this as Google didn't bring much useful help. I've installed XP SP2 and "upgraded" it to Vista - it worked although took quite some time.
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Now for the Vista. What a mess it is. Core desktop OS utilities are IMO terrible. Windows Explorer tries hard to bring some useful features from Finder/Nautilus and I for one find them useful (favourite places sidebar, breadcrumb address bar). Other than that it's interface is too busy and many "features" are purely for cosmetics and not usability, often having the opposite effect on both sides.
Control Panel is even worse, there are recursive links everywhere and it lacks any impression of being sanely structured. Thank $deity for classic view but they have managed to bork it a little too.
Aero - very good looking, maybe they went over the top with the glass effect but overall it's elegant. They should have shortened the animation time though because little delays everywhere are very distracting.
UAC - I have disabled it as soon as I've found those settings in Control Panel (by accident).
Sidebar - useless waste of space and resources, why is it enabled by default?
I'm still trying to use Vista and I'll probably leave it on a small partition because I have to know how to use it, but it's not a very pleasant experience. There are many new useful features (and insanely good looking Minesweeper
2007/2008 is certainly not a year of Windows desktop.
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So, I'll add some points to the Mr. Dvorak list
12. Bad design decisions.
13. Too hard to use / broken.