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Hmm. I though that you were a macboi

Call me crazy but I think Vista is pretty good and I havent had any real problems with it. I also have a dual boot since one of my main programs just became Vista capable but I'll be changing over to Vista soon.

Vista isn't perfect but its not terrible.

Altough I won't go as far as to call Vista one big pile of s**t, I too switched again to XP. It is faster, more customizable (for example, Windowblinds screws up my WLM main window in Vista, and I don't know why), yes, less secure (altough if you know what you're doing, it IS just as secure as Vista), and way more mature.

I'm sure it's not Microsoft's fault, but Vista's drivers have yet to grow, right now a lot of things don't work well in Vista.

So I'll wait for Vista SP1 to try again.

Until then, I'm sticking with XP.

Ive done the same. I grabbed a 500gb drive so I can comfortably dual boot XP/Vista for the foreseeable future. I gotta say, I hardly touch the Vista side.

I preordered Vista Ultimate OEM but am back on XP for the time being - performance in Vista is just not good enough... even browsing hard-drives it is much slower than XP. Games like Guild Wars run well but take an extra 8-10 seconds to minimise out of and ASIO performance in Cubase is appalling. I've tried both the 32bit and 64bit version and neither is very fast. Once I've upgraded to Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM I will try it again - I know my current system isn't the best but with XP is runs brilliantly and with Vista it's a dog. If the beta for SP1 comes out any time soon then I'll try that as well, though I'm not holding much hope for a significant performancei increase.

It's a real shame that I can't use Vista much as feature wise it is great - it's also lame that Ultimate Extras has only given one useful application (Hold 'Em). There is no reason a pretty interface and some tweaks under the hood should reduce performance so dramatically - Vista is poorly optimised and that is the general consesus I hear from people I know.

Driver support isn't going to improve an OS thats pants in the first place. Your comments about OSX are simply untrue. Anyway. This is a discussion about XP/Vista. Not OSX.

Personally, I haven't seen Vista crash once. I have seen more kernel panics on OSX.. (that is one kernel panic so far)

For what it's worth I havent seen Vista crash either in the month I've had it. I've experienced the slow file transfer thing and time to time it's become unresponsive but it's always recovered (although sometimes I'll lose an application but usually not) which is something of a gamble on XP for me.

Seriously? you honestly think that Vista's driver support wont improve say a year from now July 2008? BTW i dont know what you were smoking back 2000 and 2001 (and a little bit of 2002) but OSX was a buggy slow and increadibly frustration operating system. Ask any seasoned Mac Enthusiast about their fun time with 10.0 and 10.1. youll find out that what you said is simply BS. Now, i hope yo usee the pattern here: OSX buggy, slow then (relativley) fast, reliable now. As popular operating systems age they all seem to become more reliable and yes thats usually thanks to increased driver support from 3rd parties.

Im with ew2x4 on the hating vista fad. it better end soon its starting to get on my nerves

I didn't say driver support wouldn't improve. I said that driver support cannot improve an OS thats flawed in the first place. MS could have made something revoluntionary out of Vista (which it needed to be) but instead it's just XP with a inconsistent translucent interface which makes it slow and cumbersome. And yes I have used Vista on many different machines. Mac and PC.

How can you compare Vista to OSX 10.0/10.1 or even 10.2? You need to be comparing Vista to 10.4 or even 10.5.

Oh man, why do people keep saying the same crap about Vista? "XP with a inconsistent translucent interface". Talk about not knowing what really happend. There has been major work done under the hood to the core OS, which is why things don't work right from the start, and why compatibility is a bit iffy with apps and drivers. Once apps and hardware works like it should, Vista will be better than XP.

If you think that slapping in a new UI is the only change they've made, then I dunno what to say, stick to OSX, which has more eye candy than you can shake a stick at.

Lol, man u need to check this one out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_vista
Showes the end user features that vista have. i think wat u are saying is pure FUD and i am tired of commnets like this who have no idea what they are talking about. Tell me have u ever used vista or are u just a normal user that goes arround in tech forums pretending to be a geek???

Vista is the first transition of the Windows 6 and it has to be compared with first transition of OSX that is 10.4 plain and simple. You have got to get your facts straight.

I don't use Vista because my FPS in most games is reduced heavily. Some games get as much as 2x slower than when running them on XP.

You're telling me it's wrong to complain about an operating system that is having a noticeable effect on one of the more fun and time consuming things of my summer?

Well, sorry then. I guess I'm definitely in the wrong for complaining about that. I should pretty much just bend over and take whatever a big company gives me just because YOU say so.

No offense, but you're an idiot. So is the guy saying OS X is not buggy.

Did I not call driver support out as being one of the flaws of Vista? Your issues are with Nvidia and ATI. Not MS. To complain about low FPS is understandable. To whine about it and how MS is "raping" you is ridiculous- not to mention another testimony in how moronic most Vista bashers are.

Ugh. I'm always divided on whether to laugh or cry at over-opinionated rants like this pile of nonsense.

Accept it. Not everyone is having the sweet and joyous experience with Vista that you're clearly having. I know I haven't. Driver problems alone have driven me to the edge of insanity and whilst that is down to vendors, clearly there must be a reason why virtually EVERY hardware company was caught off guard with Vista drivers - it can't be just coincidence for petes sake.

Its not like I don't have good hands on experience with it either. I was trying out the CTP builds and got it before it was available to the mass market thanks to being a corporate / enterprise user (so was legally running it before Christmas) - I was dissappointed with it then, and if anything now the sliiight novelty has worn off. I just upgraded my home PC this weekend and despite it being more than adequate to run Vista now, XP was the only choice for it.

In short, from my experiences - bad driver support, "fat" ui for anything less than widescreen displays, RIDICULOUSLY bloated, full of stuff that just makes the experience frustrating rather than functional, terrible support for existing software products (not entirely MS's fault but still..) and laughably sluggish 3D GUI performance - I mean you seriously need complete overkill to get the UI running totally smoothly on stuff like Flip3D.

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate that it will need time to smooth out just like XP did. I certainly remeber Win2000 and WinXP generating similar sorts of discussions back when they came out.. and the shock that my video games ran noticably slower under XP. I stuck to a dual boot configuration for a fair while!

Accept it, when a new OS is released it has these issues (drivers, running slowly on older hardware). It's called progress. To have this type of stuff be front page news time and time again is ridiculous. Places like Slashdot are filled with "Vista sucks because..." news posts, when most of them boil down to user error. Face it, Vista has its issues but it's nothing more than any OS has gone through. To compare it to OS X (really the only comparable OS out), Vista excels in drivers and stability. I've been forced to use OS X for a year now and I'm extremely dissatisfied with it. Cautiously installing Vista on my home system was a breath of fresh air. I got it for $60, so I figured I may as well try it. It's now my main OS.

EVERY hardware company is getting lazy with drivers. They have been lazy since a couple years into the XP release. No evolution with Quadro or Geforce drivers. X64 drivers were lackluster with all components. There's no reason to have a beta for 2 years and not produce decent drivers at release. If you think that lies on MS's shoulders, you're crazy.

When I read posts like yours, I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. It goes both ways. Just because someone posts an opinion, doesn't mean they have vast experience backing those opinions up.

You seem to like to pull a lot of things out of thin air to make your campaign against "Vista bashers" more plausible. Unfortunately you didn't seem to have anything to make my arguement invalid. In fact, all you actually did was, in your attempt to prove all of us "Vista bashers" incompetent, prove that you yourself are a Microsoft groupie, and thereby make your own judgements bias.

My issues may or may not be with ATI or Nvidia, but how does that change the fact my games go slower? At all?

It doesn't, and they still do go slower. My point still remains as solid as ever, and all you did was try to say I'm an idiot because of, well, I haven't quite figured that out yet.

Also, a few of your statements don't make any sense to me. I, apparently, have the ability to complain about low FPS without you getting out your Vista basher bashing stick, but if I take it a step further and "whine" about it, which is apparently simply done by mentioning it at all, I'm all of the sudden in the red zone and am free game to be insulted by the likes of someone who apparently worships a certain company for reasons I don't really care about.

The other thing that didn't make sense was when you stated that I claimed Microsoft was "raping" me. I'd like to clear this up because you obviously do not know how to comprehend the english language in a way that is somehow not directly insulting you or your favorite buddy Microsoft. I said big company. That is a generalization. That means it was for big companies in general. I could very well have been implying Microsoft, ATI, Nvidia, and maybe even Google for all you know. I don't take what big companies give me just because some crazed fanboy tells me to because I have my own opinions and I like to rely on my own experiences, not yours.

By the way, did I ever mention hating Vista? Did I ever even once bash Vista at all, or did I simply mention that I don't use it because my FPS was severly compromised? Yeah, think about it. You automatically assumed a lot of things from my post because, apparently, you LIKE it when people "bash" Vista. You get your jollies making arguments out of absolutely nothing.

I'm still not going to use Vista. Know why? My games go slower, just like they did a couple of hours ago. Wanna know whos fault that is? I don't. I don't care at all. Until it's fixed by whoever is causing the problem, I'm not using Vista. Good for you if you want to try to keep cramming your crap down everybodies throat like a true die-hard Microsoft drone, but don't expect people to just simply swallow it because you're the big bad guy who's going to call us all naughty and insulting words.

* Windows Aero: Useless eye candy.
* Windows Shell: Same ****, different pile.
* Instant Search: Useless because Google Desktop does this better.
* Windows Sidebar: Semi-useless.
* Windows Internet Explorer 7: Available for XP, but why would you ever use IE? Firefox or Opera, please.
* Windows Media Player 11: Same crap as WMP 8/9/10, backported to XP.
* Backup and Restore Center: More useless crap.
* Windows Mail: No thanks, I use Thunderbird.
* Windows Calendar: No, really? A calendar? Wow. Inovative! I mean, there's not already a million freeware apps that let me do the exact same thing. Gosh, I just HAVE to buy Vista now!
* Windows Photo Gallery: Photoshop, anyone?
* Windows DVD Maker: Yet more useless crap.
* Windows Media Center: Again, availabe for XP.
* Games and Games Explorer: Borrrring.
* Windows Mobility Center: Just a facelift of what was already in XP.
* Windows Meeting Space: AKA Netmeeting AKA Freeking Useless.
* Shadow Copy: Was already available for 2k3
* Windows Update: Golly. That was NEVER available for XP. Why, you had to go and do EVERYTHING manualy. Becasue you are a moron.
* Parental controls: Usefull if you're a parent. Or a child. Otherwise, it's totally useless.
* Windows SideShow: Actualy new and actualy usefull. Holy CRAP!
* Speech recognition is integrated into Vista. Too bad it sucks so badly.
* New fonts, including several designed for screen reading, and improved Chinese (Yahei, JhengHei), Japanese (Meiryo) and Korean (Malgun) fonts. See Windows Vista typefaces. ClearType has also been enhanced and enabled by default. But I don't care because I speak English.
* Problem Reports and Solutions: I have better things to do than send MS bug reports that they will ignore.
* Improved audio controls. For those of you who like to listen to multiple applications at multiple volume levels. All three of you.
* System Performance Assessment: Totally useless. Get a real benchmarking utility, not this laughable POS.
* Windows Ultimate Extras: AKA Windows Ultimate Waste Of Time
* Built-in hard drive partition management: Reeking of uselessness. If the drive fails, all the partitions go with it: Get a clue and use multiple drives.
* Performance Diagnostic Console: Usefull thing #2. Are you impressed yet?

So, let's see: That's 2 "new" & "usefull" things out a list of 29 items.
This is why one dosn't use Wikipedia as a reference source, m'k?

WTF... you can say that about anything. Like, (Insert your favourite software) for example.

* (Some feature): Useful, for the 3 people that use it.
* (Another feature): Who the hell would want to use that?
* (Some other feature): A copy of another program
* (And another feature): Already out on (Some previous version)

etc. You're just being negative for the sake of trying to prove a point.


OK like XP for example, also from wikipedia:
* Faster start-up and hibernation sequences: Oooh saving a few more seconds! Woo-pee-doo!
* The ability to discard a newer device driver in favor of the previous one (known as driver rollback), should a driver upgrade not produce desirable results: Pfft any moron can just install the correct driver in the first place.
* A new, arguably more user-friendly interface, including the framework for developing themes for the desktop environment: And all we got was ass-ugly themes.
* Fast user switching, which allows a user to save the current state and open applications of their desktop and allow another user to log on without losing that information: ONE good feature
* The ClearType font rendering mechanism, which is designed to improve text readability on Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and similar monitors: Makes text look uglier.
* Remote Desktop functionality, which allows users to connect to a computer running Windows XP from across a network or the Internet and access their applications, files, printers, and devices: Already in Windows 2000
* Support for most DSL modems and wireless network connections, as well as networking over FireWire: Already in Windows 2000

Of course I don't actually believe anything I just wrote in the list.


Last edited by Post-It Note on 24 Jul 2007 - 03:12

I think there is only one possible way to sum up this sub-discussion / flamewar. We need to accept that one tool doesn't fit all purposes.

If you like Vista, great - use it. If you like XP - great, use it. If you like OSX - great, use it. Don't tell other people they're wrong because the product they use does the job for them, or looks right to them. I, for example, feel that OSX is far far more attractive / smooth than Windows will ever be.. but thats just my opinion. But I can understand why some say Vista is prettier. Even if I don't agree

Throw out perfectly working hardware? why?

Well, since it seems many old pieces of hardware won't get supported by their makers with vista software/hardware, I'd say THEY want you to buy their new stuff insted of having you stay with their old stuff.

They lose money on supporting 6yo hardware for Vista, it's better for them to make a cutoff point, say 3yo, and only support things from there and newer. Yeah people will be SOL by this, but hardware makers sell hardware, not drivers.

6yo hardware is not old, but we are used to being ripped off.
Hadn't my mobo died I wouldn't have replaced the computer I had six years ago.

Regarding OS support, I've always found the "selling software as business model" to be wrong from a consumer POV. The obvious consequence is that you'll be force fed with new versions you don't actually need... and unlike similar items on other markets, the life span of most software products is ridiculously (and artificially) short.

I stopped reading there.

Edit: wrong quote, fixed

Thanks for sharing

By what measure can you tell whether an OS "feels like it's from 2001"? The eye-candy? The constant paranoid nagware? I'm genuinely curious--I've run Vista since the first Longhorn PDC build all the way to the final RC, and I've never seen anything in it that made me want to purchase the RTM or install a copy from my MSDN subscription other than on a test machine or a VM.

I'm not trolling, I just don't see the real incentive--any must have feature--to move from XP.

I can't quantify that "feels like" idea you're talking about. Please enlighten me.

Last edited by _dandy_ on 23 Jul 2007 - 14:31

Very well put, that's precisely the reason I won't be moving from XP. If Vista had something concrete, a large improvement over XP, I'd move to it. But it doesn't - the increased security would be good for Joe Public, but for geeks in general an AV program in the background and a firewall is fine... The eye candy is just pointless really, and the UI has just become more inconsistent than ever.

There are small improvements here and there in Vista, but at least for now - the driver issues along with the massive hardware requirements are putting me off. I'm sticking with XP - it just works...

teh pwn? two words that mean NOTHING! You have NO credibility, so how about just not posting?

XP SP3 should be the SP coming out this year, not Vista SP1. Having Vista SP1 come out so quickly just goes to show how much Vista was not ready to be released yet.

XP will be the Corporate OS of choice for years to come. SAP doesn't even support Vista yet.

I'll tell you one feature that will keep me from ever switching back to XP: Search, Search, Search! It is so much easier to find programs and files in vista than in XP. Also, 64 bit seems to be a lot more supported than xp. I have been running 64 bit for about 5-6 months now without any problems regarding games or programs.

Please don't tell people they have no credibility because of what they say.. That is their opinnion, and they are entitled to it.

I don't see any incentive at all. Yes, there are a few nice features in Vista but nothing that makes it a must have OS. If I could pick two features from Vista to have on my XP boxes it would be the sound stack (love the individual program volume) and DX10. The bugs with the memory management were enough for me.

You're telling me not to post and that I have no credibility based on.... an indifference of opinion? So laughable, in fact, I'll laugh right now: roflolzcopters.

On a more serious note, I have as much credibility as anyone who has used both OS', and even more than those that used it for a brief period of time and stopped because it is my main OS, and previously XP was my main OS. I am able to run everything on here, from my video, audio and photo editing programs, my video games, web browsers, office programs; everything that I used and did on XP I can do on Vista with no problems. It's much more secure than XP; I've yet to experience any problems with my sad Windows Firewall (I use nothing else, no AV, no ant-spy ware, nada; I very much lack this confidence in XP with SP2).

I see no problem with a SP coming out this year. Did you know that XP SP1 came out 11 months after XP came out? If you want to get all technical about it, Vista's SP could be 11 months as well if it comes out in October since Vista was on MSDN in November of '06. Your logic fails. XP was no beaming OS when it came out. SP2 made XP what it is today, almost three years after it was released. Vista is ahead of pre-SP XP imho, as evident that XP SP2 wouldn't even install properly on my Core 2 Duo system, whereas Vista installed without so much as a hickup. Heck, I still can't get XP to install, even on a VM (Windows 2000 installs, however).

No credibility, you so silly.

Last edited by Mathachew on 23 Jul 2007 - 21:22

Many things are listed later in the comments. From a usability stand point, I find it much more effective than with XP, and even with XP, I thought it was nice.

Actually, I've used SAPGUI 7 with great success on Vista...

I completely agree. There are numerous "little" things in Vista that make it well worth the upgrade:

- vastly superior caching system: Try leaving a bunch of relatively memory hungry apps open in XP, come back in the morning and see how responsive your system is .. I guarantee you'll need a reboot for things to start performing well. XP moves its cache to concentrate on background tasks when the system is idle for a long time. In Vista, every time I sit down at my PC, it feels like things are ready to go.
- File Transfer #of files and current speed (yes, there is file transfer bug in Vista, but after it's patched, the speed is the same and the extra info is fantastic)
- start menu search/launch (I can't even begin to say how wonderful this feature is ... I NEVER have to scroll through my programs list again and I am so happy for that!
- Stacking - try doing this in XP: show me the most recently modified/added files in the last week over an entire directory with many subdirectories. I can do this in Vista with 2 clicks.
- Vastly improved event log, scheduled task system.
- Breadcrumb in the address bar: Jumping to any folder in the current subdir tree is great.

I could go on and on. All you people who have tried Vista at launch and thought it sucked (like I did), should really try it again. The combination of drivers that finally work, all the latest Vista patches and the fact that it learns how you use your computer (which programs you use and when) has boosted the performance of my system tremendously ... I swear to you that my system is faster now than when I first installed Vista. This is not something anyone can say about OS X and definitely not for XP or any prior windows OS.

I wouldn't say the network setup is easier, infact for setting up a dialup networking account I think they barried the options. once you find it the wizard is easier but its the finding it first.

I would say it's great that they did that! Old legacy components should be hidden from plain view because a minority of the population who will be using Vista will ever use them and if they aren't hidden/removed, it makes the interface difficult to use because there are too many options.

Dial-up is a last resort option in this day in age. I have not used a dial up connection in 5 years and hope I will never have to again. I realize that in some parts, dial-up may be the only option, but I would conjecture that in those areas, adoption of new hardware and new operating systems is also very slow, so by the time they get around to getting a computer with Vista, they will have broadband.

I concur. The true test is to use Vista for a few weeks and then try to go back to using XP. You'll be "oh fscking" here and there when you notice features of Vista you've grown fond of are not available in XP. Vista's single render pass desktop compoision gives it a type of visual finesse that's not available in XP. Some blow this and other visual enhancements off as "eye candy," but for a machine at which you may spend eight to ten hours at every day, it does make a difference in how enjoyable the experience is.

I had to do this over the weekend and it had me scratching my head for a time, lol. I think I typed in "connect to the internet" in Help and Support and it bought the wizard up.

No Vista complaints from me. It works great on my 3 1/2 year old system (P4 3.0GHz, 1.5GB RAM). What I can't get is that I see posts from people who has systems much more capable than mine (i.e. dual cores, more RAM) that complain of sluggishness from Vista. I guess I am lucky my hardware works well with Vista.

Since Feb. I have yet to see a BSOD. I did have problems with an Nvidia file stopping unexpectantly which caused the screen to blackout after some reboots but Vista always recovered from it. This was Nvidia's problem and since the the latest beta driver I haven't noticed this behavior.

You are always going to have some people complaining when a new OS comes out. I remember pretty much the same thing with XP plus the outrage against Activation. I read many posts about people saying they would rather stick with Win98 than go through activation. And then when Win98 came out people were complaining about IE being embedded into the OS.

Last edited by midway40 on 23 Jul 2007 - 20:38

Have they made the handling of file-types any less clumsy?

I always hated that if I rename a file's extension, Explorer can't figure out the file type by content, and instead has to give me a hideous warning "the system will be hopelessly confused if you change the extension"

The reason for that is that out of 500 people out there 495 of them buy PC from OEM means their windows comes built in with the system... And 5 of them never wanted to move cause of compatibility issues or something []

Yes,just check in 2 years,what they are using,and then u'll say "OMG everyone is using Vista!"

Maybe those 500 people you know are old crusties- too cranky to try anything new, and p!ssed off if they have to buy a new computer every ten years in order to catalog their Precious Moments figurines.

SP3 should be released but not with any specfic 'Vista goodies.' It needs to get released for security purposes as well as ease of setting up a new machine. I would like to think of SP3 as the last great stake for XP

xp sp3 will be a rollup of the security updates + IE7 + windows defender

I think

That alone is not worth the trouble for most people.

XP has finally reached some level of acceptable stability and security, for businesses and professional use this is more important than playing DX10 games, or some vaguely useful addons like Search, or a fancy GUI.

Does Vista significantly improve productivity to justify the cost of upgrading (and training)? At this point, the answer is no.

So great, integrated, easy search is only a "vaguely useful" addon? I would say for most businesses with lots of documents that would be a HUGE draw to Vista. Also, vista has been quite a bit more stable for me than XP EVER was.

*LAUGH* You'll be missed on the Microsoft ship, I'm sure, if all it takes are some white boxes and some dirty people at the Apple store to sway you.