Everybody Hates Vista....But Why?

[ReservoirAngel]

For me it's that it seems so desperate to make sure you don't step out of line.

"Are you SURE you want to open that programme?"
"Are you SURE you want to close this other one?"
"Are you SURE you want to install this game, it could be harmful ya know."
"Are you SURE you want to punch a crack in my screen and throw me across the room?"
"Okay good. Just lookin' out for ya big guy."

It's like an over-protective parent. I fear it's one step away from becoming the preliminary form of GLaDOS...

...and now I've ensured I won't get much sleep tonight.

 

[number2301]

As a little side note, UAC is a good thing people, it's only flaw is that it isn't quite strong enough. Linux, famed for being more secure than Windows applies exactly the same type of system, where tasks which could damage the computer require an admin password. That includes accessing an alternative hard drive.

UAC and a limited user account are the first two steps to setting up a safe Windows system, the third and fourth being Microsoft Security Essentials and a hardware firewall.

Erm, you know a hell of a lot of the updates are security fixes? You're putting yourself and everyone else at risk by disabling updates.

I'm not dumb enough to click on every link I hit, I block ads and scripts 99.9% of the time(Certain sites are whitelisted so they don't probate me, namely this one), I run regular AV scans, I don't use Internet Explorer, I don't open strange attachments or click on strange links, and I don't download stupid shit.


The last time I had any sort of malware Windows ME was but a twinkle in Bill's eye. I don't need Microsoft breaking everything behind the scenes to keep me safe. I can do that myself.

And besides, I can't think of a single reason to disable them, the ones which aren't security fixes are driver updates, or they add functionality or performance.

I can think of one good reason why you should turn both Windows Update and UAC off.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, fix only what's broken.

That philosophy keeps my pickup truck running great, and it works on my computer just as well. Both are well past their prime and should have been retired years ago.

I've found Windows runs just fine right out of the box. It ain't broken. So why should I fix it? Those updates just break more shit than they fix anyways. Pre-SP1 my com surrogate, whatever the fuck that is, works fine. Post-SP1, however, it crashes every time I load a folder that's got a lot of movies or pictures in it. Takes explorer.exe with it. This annoys me since I FRAPS an awful lot of things. My boot times doubled thanks to SP1. My shutdown times pre-SP1 were pretty snappy. Post-SP1 the only way I get a snappy shutdown is with an AC failure. AKA I flip the power supply/power strip off. Then there's all my old Win98SE era games that run fine on RTM Vista, but with SP1 installed, are horribly broken in some manner.

I don't update my video drivers unless they're broken, either. I'm still on 195s. They work, they get good FPS, they're stable as hell, so I have no need to get the latest ones. Same goes for any other drivers. I must be doing something right, because you don't get over 1200 hours consecutive uptime(That screeny I posted is a few days old) if you're screwing around on the job.

Not all issues are down to user error. Some come in through vulnerabilities in things like flash and other components. Some of these are injected into adverts or components of otherwise reputable sites. Some of these have a hell of an easier time with a system which automatically grants them full administrative access as yours does cause I do not believe for a second you run a limited account.

Wow, just wow.

And I've never believe in 'if it aint broke don't fix it'.

You are essentially running against all of the best advice security experts, and the fact that you have managed to keep your system running well is not an example I'd like to see lead to people taking your approach.

 

[Void(null)]

Ok the problems with Vista was thus:

Drivers. Drivers & Drivers.

The OS was simply not supported at the developer level and thus finding stable working drivers was a nightmare and it created a vicious circle where people were not making Vista or 64bit drivers a priority because so few were using the OS and so few people were using the OS due to the instability from poor driver support.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I have already posted this at least three times but here we go again. I was employed as an IT professional during both the Vist and Win7 roll outs. I had plenty of time to see the reaction of a great many people and have experienced most actual problems either OS has actually caused.

1) At release there were numerous software compatibility problems. For example, Outlook XP and prior would not store a password properly because it required an OS feature that was removed due to countless security problems associated with it. Driver issues persisted far longer than they should have. In most cases, these were the result of a third party (that is, not microsoft or the user) causing a problem by failing to support their product for one reason or another.

2) Vista (Win7 to an extent of course) required substantially more horsepower to simply run. When Vista was first released, computer manufacturers were quick to produce the ever popular cheap computers that just barely met the minimum standard for Vista. With Vista consuming most of the system's resources, the customer would believe that they had been cheated having bought a computer that was somehow slower than the one they had just replaced! This is a result of customer ignorance and, to a lesser extent, borderline predatory activity on behalf of the major PC manufacturers.

3) Vista significantly altered the GUI. If there is one thing people hate more than anything it is learning to do something over again. Consider the related complaints regarding Office 2007.

4) The UAC feature, designed to prevent unauthorized access to critical files, constantly prompts the user for permission to do something. Being the single biggest threat to the security of the system, it makes sense to at least warn the user when they are doing something that has the potential to harm their computer. Most people however do not have enough knowledge to get anything useful out of these messages and simply click through, mildly annoyed at the interruption. Others, fearful of doing something to hurt their computer and utterly ignorant will panic each time the message appears. While well intentioned, the flaw here is obvious: if you know enough that the messages might be useful it is unlikely that the UAC will actually help you in any way, and if you do not then they are simply an inconvenience.

5) The biggest problem in my experience had nothing to do with the previous four, but was rather a social problem. Simply put, people had heard that the product had problems and they simply refused to try it. As of August when I left tech support there were people who still refused to upgrade to a new OS even when they had no sensible argument as to why.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Ok the problems with Vista was thus:

Drivers. Drivers & Drivers.

The OS was simply not supported at the developer level and thus finding stable working drivers was a nightmare and it created a vicious circle where people were not making Vista or 64bit drivers a priority because so few were using the OS and so few people were using the OS due to the instability from poor driver support.

I remember having to spend a great many hours modifying a version of the Geforce 7600 drivers so that I could use them with my laptop and actually leverage that second card I bought. It took six months to get an official driver to support this feature.

 

[kebab4you]

The obvious answer is because its so unreliable and unstable. But why is that? What does the programing do so wrong?

It is? Still using Vista since I do not enjoy the W7 tool bar, to much mac for me ...

 

[Wolfenbarg]

My brother got a laptop that my dad got for work, but they quickly decided that he needed something better and let him keep the first one they gave him. It was running Vista, which my brother and I were skeptical about because of all the blasting we heard on the internet. We booted it up and were surprised to see how fast and smooth everything worked. That was for the first couple of months at least. He used it exactly like he used XP, nothing too flashy, and the thing runs at less than a snail's pace now. It direly needs a reformat and it barely has anything on it, and all malware scans come up nil. I know it supports better hardware, but it really isn't a selling point when so many people claim that it venerates the operating system it was supposed to replace.

Now I know that newer versions of Vista work much better than the launch, but I don't see why I would want to go back when I can just upgrade to Windows 7. Still sold on XP though.

 

[SergeMC]

okay, to clarify: i am sorry for this outburst of german stupidity. it is christmas
vista has its weaknesses, but it is not necessarily a bad system. never had a problem with it... but then again... i am not a hacker

 

[acosn]

It was too much of an in between that didn't really give concessions.

Probably the single biggest thing about vista is the jump in system resources you need to run it. Reasonably for any mildly demanding application it needs 2 gigs of RAM to work. That's more than what most mid / high end XP OS based computers ran. My parents old thing only has 512 mbs of RAM and it still chugs along like a trooper 7 years later.

It was also the start of an overhaul that wouldn't be fully realized till Windows 7 and naturally no one likes buying into a work in progress.

 

[Naeo]

1. UAC. Fucking UAC. You run a program that came built into Vista when you bought it and it says "Are you sure you want to run this program?" and says it's from Microsoft and has been digitally verified/signed/etc. Also, you can't turn it off. I once had it do that to me when I was changing my bloody display settings.

2. MEMORY. HOG. Vista takes up more RAM than most other operating system's I've used, and it's more noticeable.

3. Fucking nothing is compatible with it. Everything programmed for XP (or a lot of it, at least) had to be reprogrammed, adapted, emulated, or so on to work on Vista. At my dad's workplace they tried to switch over to Vista but found out that only the Office suite and a few other things (i.e. nothing they needed to perform day-to-day business tasks) were still compatible.

4. For a while (I think this was fixed in an update/service pack or something) if you had an open USB port or really any port, it would send power to it as if it had something plugged in. Massive waste of energy, especially if you had a laptop.

5. In my own personal experience, it was very unstable. It crashed all the time, and ultimately my computer refused to start up again. Then I managed to get it to boot long enough to initiate an upgrade to Windows 7. Suddenly, my computer worked again.

 

[kouriichi]

I love my vista. I refuse to tech up to windows 7 because i love it so much.

WHAT???

At least try Windows 7. I don't even...why would you...?

I did try 7. My uncle friend loaned me his comp for a few days so i could try it.

I was, sadly, not impressed. Its nothing that i need. And even more so, nothing that i want.
I like my vista. It feels smooth. And responsive. Any problems with it, were something that i caused.

Besides. Its not all about the OS. I feel its more what you hook up to it. If your hardwear is up to date or better, your computer can handle anything.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

I actually don't dislike windows vista...

the thing is, they put in a million uneeded programs that are CONSTANTLY active, slowing down the system, along with the amount of memory the OS takes up.

The quick fix to make it work great (as I did) is to simply get rid of the stuff you don't need before you install all your stuff on it.

I've used Vista since 2007 and I've never had the need to reinstall it. However the slowdown you mentioned are a thing that I'm experiencing as well. Would you be kind to provide me with instructions on how to fix this issue?

I had to switch to a windows 7 when my computer broke a while back (A million hardware problems such as a warped heat sink, missing keys, broken recharger, but not a single software one.) so I don't exactly remember, there was a youtube video that explains it pretty well, let me find it...

This one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYZslFrFUcs&feature=related (It has a second list after the first list, also, if you use remote access, or host servers, etc. don't undo some of the things.)



EDIT: BTW, windows 7 I've concluded is -NOT- a better OS, its simply dumbed down a good bit with a lot of features unnaccesable. I.E. its a system for computer illiterates.

 

[AlexLoxate]

I actually don't dislike windows vista...

the thing is, they put in a million uneeded programs that are CONSTANTLY active, slowing down the system, along with the amount of memory the OS takes up.

The quick fix to make it work great (as I did) is to simply get rid of the stuff you don't need before you install all your stuff on it.

I've used Vista since 2007 and I've never had the need to reinstall it. However the slowdown you mentioned are a thing that I'm experiencing as well. Would you be kind to provide me with instructions on how to fix this issue?

I had to switch to a windows 7 when my computer broke a while back (A million hardware problems such as a warped heat sink, missing keys, broken recharger, but not a single software one.) so I don't exactly remember, there was a youtube video that explains it pretty well, let me find it...

This one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYZslFrFUcs&feature=related (It has a second list after the first list, also, if you use remote access, or host servers, etc. don't undo some of the things.)



EDIT: BTW, windows 7 I've concluded is -NOT- a better OS, its simply dumbed down a good bit with a lot of features unnaccesable. I.E. its a system for computer illiterates.

Thank you very much. I shall apply these modifications. I agree with you on what you said regarding Windows 7. It's really not worth purchasing if you already have Vista.

 

[gurall200]

To be honest, Vista isn't bad, but the jump from it to seven is quite jarring. For one, Vista ran pretty sluggish at times for me (i.e if I ran more then one or two programs with steam on (which is pusing it even then) one or both of the programs would freeze) I go to Seven, I rarely have had such a issue, I can run iTunes, Super Meat Boy and have a chrome browser up without issue, and thats with steam and a couple of other programs running in the background (all on 2GB of RAM....yeah I really need to get new ram).

Again vista isn't terrible, each time it crashed or failed, I can honestly say was more my fault, the first time being me screwing up the hard drive (don't ask me why, cause I couldn't tell you, I decided to turn off my computer while it was defraging, which is not good for the health of of windows installation to say the least) and the other was just a by product of me constantly hard restarting the computer CONSTANTLY (or at least I think it was, my computer tended to need to have the repair function on the installation disc run to start up when ever I did so), hell the only reason I even bothered to upgrade was because the dell installation disc is useless for anything but installing and repairing windows (can't reformat, I really don't know why but it can't, which is just great if your hard drive fails or your installation is messed up), it's just windows 7 runs a LOT smoother (at least for me anyways)

 

[Nazz3]

Its a buggy glitchy slow resource hungry piece of shit.

 

[[.redacted]]

I'd tell you, but my PC just stopped responding, the BSOD is about to come up, and there's a faint smell of burning...

[sub]Dw, I'm not actually on vista.[/sub]

 

[Da_Schwartz]

I would find alot of just random script errors for no reasons what so ever. Certain games and programs just didnt run well on vista. SO far 7 64bit is treating me much better. Oh and no more Are you sure? ARe you sure? are you shure?

Day to day use on vista was alright i guess. But to do anything a little bit technical or admin worthy was just a pain in the balls.

 

[psivamp]

It's nothing like ME, that's for sure.

I don't know if any OS will ever beat that. So glad I never had to use it (I was always trouble shooting my friend's comp that was running ME).

ME, ugh. I remember when one of my dad's coworkers built my new PIII system and threw ME on it. Scum bag.

OT: I installed Vista on my quad-core when I finished assembly and before configuration it had one of my cores at 80% doing squat. Now, I could have reigned that in by getting the appropriate Vista-specific video card driver and manually removing or disabling half the OS, but it was just so much easier to install XP than to deal with Vista's crap.
That said, I still run XP -- alongside Ubuntu and Mac. Any OS that requires a significant time investment to get running properly isn't worth my time. I gave hackintosh the axe on my netbook. I went with Ubuntu over slack on my MacBook because it's full of crappy non-standard hardware. I never install Vista because XP is faster on a fresh install.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/loadingreadyrun/2516-Every-OS-Sucks

 

[Fr]anc[is]

I'm far from a novice user, but I'm not a master either. To me it doesn't do anything wrong. It hasn't ever crashed for me, and in theory those constant "are you sure?" notices are a good thing. I just click yes out of habit now, but I like the idea. I haven't been around long enough to really compare it to XP myself, and I won't pretend I can.

 

[Blemontea]

My main problem is that it tried to be be so fancy looking that it put the ability to actually work fast and efficient to the side. While it looked nice it was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAy to slow, almost slower than XP, it took a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time to load (same problem with 7), and it takes up A LOOOOOOT of both memory and RAM. 2gbs if im correct so if you have 2 gigs of RAM you have no more RAM and your computer will have a siezure trying to play pong(or open up a document).