Star Microsoft: 'Five Misunderstood Features in Windows Vista'
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 21st May 2008 00:21 UTC
Windows Vista has not exactly been a massive market success. Sales numbers might be satisfactory due to OEM agreements, but press and public reception have been terrible, and there are several recurring themes in the complaints from people. Microsoft took five of these recurring themes, and addressed them in a document called 'Five Misunderstood Features in Windows Vista'.
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RE: Doing more than XP
by kaiwai on Wed 21st May 2008 01:46 UTC in reply to "Doing more than XP"
kaiwai
Member since:
2005-07-06

We've heard some of you say that Windows Vista runs slower than Windows XP on a given PC. So what's really happening here? First, we need to avoid comparing apples to oranges - Windows Vista is doing a lot more than Windows XP, and it requires resources to conduct these tasks.

Problem is, it's not really doing anything more that I actually care about.


Not just you, but many other users don't care about; its quite funny that not only does Windows XP do what everything what people want - Windows Vista is not only bloated but a let down.

Remember Windows Vista Ultimate Extras - or there lack of those extras actually being available. Anyone remember the big push by Microsoft not only to get Windows Vista loaded by default, but trying to get OEM's to sell the highest possible version of Windows Vista?

There isn't a single thing that Windows Vista visibly provides to an end user something of benefit over and above Windows XP. Heck, I'd go so far that if you grabbed Ubuntu 8.04, installed it over their Windows XP computer, the end user would keep working as usual without any problems.

Of course, once you turn off windows search, UAC, and all the other crap they threw on to idiot-proof the OS, I bet it's gonna scream. On the other hand, what are you left with when all this stuff has been gutted? Windows XP v1.5?


Nope, even with all that turned off, it still limps along. People purchasing the latest Core 2 processors, it should scream. Heck, I've got a 2.4Ghz laptop here and Windows Vista Basic ran like a slug when compared to OpenSolaris I'm running right now.

Personally, I would rather have had tabbed folders in Explorer than 90% of the stuff they threw in. And I know there's a billion Explorer replacements (many of them free), but that's not much help when you have to remote into a client machine who only has the barebones stuff.


I'd go further. I'd prefer to have no added features - just refine the whole interface instead of the mishmash of different toolkits. When I refer to toolkits, I'm not talking about the look and feel, but the actual underlying toolkit itself. Apply any theme off the Microsoft website (such as Bliss) and see the anomalies when the theme is applied - in reference to the various applications bundled with Windows.

Windows has some really awesome software written for it (which is the main reason I use it), but damn... they really dropped the ball with Vista.


The 'awesome software' provided by third parties (and Microsoft) make Windows a must. If these applications were also available on a *NIX of some flavour, dropping the ball with Windows Vista would not be just an annoyance (like it is now), it would be a catastrophe. it would be a catastrophe because the lock in by virtue of software availability (and in turn file format support) would end. People would move, their applications would be available, and the end user would just pick up where they left off.

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