Neowin.net

I could quote Scooby-Doo, but I don't think that cute quotes are actually relevant. Yes, change can be positive, but there are also changes that take you in a bad direction and are a detriment.

I think that the blog is light on real information, but it is a good color of individual perspective from someone that was on the inside. It adds humanity to the clipped segments of emails that are being revealed on the internal problems at Microsoft at the time.

Ya know all this fuss over Vista makes me wonder because I've had Vista since March 07. I got it on a brand new HP Pavilion and the only issues I ever encountered were issues with third party software like my HP PSC 1610 that HP took their sweet freakin time updating. Same with ZoneLabs and their Zone Alarm Security Suite. Not a single problem from the OS itself and I have never been happier.

Relatively speaking the "future" is a mis-conception when worded like that although it sounds good. There is only foward thinking today and its peoples idea of what accepting the "future" is that allows for mediocrity today. Today is tommorows memories (ie. problems).

Lets just try and get the now right!

For examples:
In the now my friend just spent an arm and a leg for a custom built super duper computer
In the now it came with Vista Ultimate being a Vista ready system
In the now Vista would freeze ramdomly even when trying to use Windows Update which is not 3rd party software
Needles to say that now he is back to XP

If Vista was a new car there would have been a factory recall already although I doubt it would have even left the assembly line running like this. Complaining about things now gets a change for the better in the "future"

Yep, best way to get future employers to trust you is stab old ones in back...

HaHahaha! I love that! Priceless. Spot on.

until windows 7... at which point it will all start over again

As long as you want to.

And your informed opinion and announcement of self-worth in rating this article are much appreciated.

My self-worth is just fine, thanks. That's why I'm not here arguing. I already know it's a crap article about a crap argument. And I do have an informed opinion: It's crap.

Won't say I hate Vista but dislike it greatly, and yes these "stories" have gotten old

People are only buying it because they are forced to, companies aren't allowed to ship XP with new PCs any more, or they just refuse to.

Vista may be here to stay but in the majority of people's opinions it is a downgrade from XP!

Majority? I think you've spent far too much time on the internet blogs.

i agree when you can not get xp then what else you can do.
MS always has this tactics.

People are buying PC's.

My parents and sister would have had XP if it weren't for the OEM deals. But they aren't overly computer literate, so they simply go with whatever Windows version ships with it.

Voila, Vista is a smash hit!

Yup, it's kind of amazing how MS missed that boat.

And I suppose an operating system with a much more limited audience would be better? Where does OS X fit in a corporate or gaming environment? Right, nowhere. Windows gives you the best experience whether a home user, corporate user, or gamer.

Honestly, what were they thinking, appealing to SO many markets?!!?

LOL C_Guy, play nice :p

You know, its not like the operating system is incapable of providing for either environment - everyone knows that it is an excellent operating system, but developers simply make applications for the dominant platform because thats where the money is. Why support the underdog? I think Apple have made an excellent move trying to push the iPhone into the corporate arena - once the iPhone is well liked and well supported in the enterprise, its only a matter of time before people start to explore the desktop offerings .

I firmly believe Apple will have its day - Microsoft have made enough mistakes, and slipped on the innovation front too much in the last year or so. There simply was not the interest in the Mac two years ago that there is now..



I think that is down to personal opinion mate! I think for the home user, OSX is simply leagues ahead for all round usability. I'm a relatively new Mac user but it has simply blown me away for some general home use tasks - Bluetoothing files off mobile phones, and working with digital cameras are just two immediate examples that spring to mind!

Actually, Apple is more to blame than anyone. They have no developed an alternative to DirectX and have shown no leadership or interest in supporting games developers. DX has take Microsoft over a decade to develop and Apple hasn't even laid the seeds for gaming on OSX. Gaming is one of the few things keeping me on Windows.

That's how things get improved Or in Microsoft's case, they'll work on it, scrap it after they decide it's too hard, and add transparency to windows and say "Isn't this what you were waiting for?".

That's what I was wondering! It says,"10 things I warned Microsoft about Windows Vista" but you get to number 5, and he's like,"Vista reminds me too much of Windows Me." How is that "warning" them, and where you pick up that assumption from? Simply because you got tired of using it, like you did Me? Uh... right.

"Must be a WHOLE lot better than XP." Alright, XP isn't bad... at all. In fact, it seems many people think so or they wouldn't make such a fuss about staying with XP. Now, to upgrade from where XP stands can be really rough. Despite the problems Microsoft has had rewriting a whole OS, I'd say with SP1, they've stepped it up plenty. As one Neowin member put it, this is just the "OS X 10.1" of what's to come. With service packs and the next OS, hopefully Microsoft can make it even better. However, Vista is certainly not as horrible as many make it out to be. And most CERTAINLY not anything resembling Windows Me, as he put it. Remember, Vista runs better with better hardware too. Me never runs better. Ever.

He also talks about how it didn't ship soon enough. Now there's backward thinking. "Make Vista right, but release it as soon as you can." Can you imagine what sorts of other problems we'd have with Vista if they hadn't released it when they did?

The rest is simply stuff that's been stated well enough already.

And if Vista didn't need more advanced hardware to run everyone would complain that Vista isn't "up to par". No matter what Microsoft does, the haters will always find a reason to hate, even if they reek of ignorance.

Exactly. That's why we have articles like this one from some ass guy who makes his complaint with "I got tired of using Vista just like Me, therefore Vista = Me."

Right, let's all buy what Steve Jobs tells us to buy instead like mindless robots.

Oh, wait....

And buy a Windows PC like mindless robots?

People who invest in and Apple do so by choice. You need to make an effort to look beyond the countless Windows boxes that flood tech stores/outlets. These people already know about Windows, and most of them have had quite enough.

Most Windows users use Windows because they don't know any better.

God forbid it'd be because of the lack of programs and games we want or need. Not to mention the price tag that comes with it. Hell, for the price of an iPhone, I can make a decent computer that can perform wonders.

Why can't Apple simply lower the prices for the hardware we know isn't costing them much? Is it a "social status" thing, keeping people with the smaller paychecks from having it or what? I mean, you talk as if OS X is "the way of the future", but it doesn't look like Apple want their hardware/software in the hands of the lower class.

I tell you one thing though, only product I've purchased from them was the $80 shuffle because I thought it looked great. Guess what, that same shuffle is the same damn price still, and it's audio quality blows. I am extremely disappointed by it honestly, as well as at myself for being fooled into it. And that's not even getting into using iTunes as well. :\

Bah, I'm ranting now. Ah well. I don't have a problem with OS X or Apple computers for that matter. It's just the idiots within the company. Dumb corporate assholes are what's holding Apple back.

People who use heroin do so by choice. You need to make an effort to look for heroin beyond the countless light drugs. These people already know about pot and LSD, and most of them have had quite enough.
Most people who don't use drugs do so because they don't know any better.

LOL

When Windows XP first launch I switched to XP right away. All of the new OS that Microsoft made, I never bash but was so eager to jump right into using it, until Vista came along. Vista is the first Microsoft OS that I personally hated to the heart. I have seen a very very few number of people bashing XP and wanting to stick to Windows ME, but that is too low to even compare that to Vista's disappointment.

Comparing upgrading from WinME to Winxp to upgrading from XP to Vista is just no comparison. I think we all agree that windows Me was a complete disaster. So with that point, yes nobody was eager to switch back to Windows Me but some were going back to 98. When XP came out alot of people were bashing it because it was slower than 98. As the OS matured everyone got used to it and it became more stable. The same is happening with Vista. I have been using Vista 64bit since day 1 and besides the lack of driver support from the maufacturers, I have no complaints. Blame the lazy hardware companies for their lack of driver support especially for the 64bit system.
One of the things I will fault MS for is the revamp of the sound system. That was a big mistake.

I remember when ME came out I tried it for 1 week and went back to 98SE. Windows ME was crap utter crap 98 was not that good as well. You can say 98 was half baked and ME was about 25% baked. Yes then XP came out and just like Vista hardware issues it took months before I could get my video card to run right and a lot of games did not work, XP was slow and did not start working right till on older hardware. Vista is the same for me, when I got my free copy a year ago it was much faster then the beta but still slow and nvidia drivers sucked. In all the Vista experience from the start is much better then XP was and I have done hundreds and dare say thousands of XP installs. I have built about 30 Vista computers and the only complainant I here is old programs are slow. Other then that they love Vista and say it is better then XP.

I remember trying Server 2003 and liking it seemed faster then xp. I have tried Server 2008 and like it better then Vista.

Last edited by Typhon on 17 Mar 2008 - 20:25

The majority of users do not like Vista. The reaction was never this bad for so long when XP was released. Unless you count some Win2K users. But they had a point, XP was a noticeable improvement compared to 9x, but not so much compared to Win2K. Vista is a lot like comparing XP and Win2K, the advantages are very minor, and unlike XP, Vista has numerous disadvantages compared to its mainstream predecessor.

There are now also alternatives to compare it against, so it's no longer an MS-only market--which is a good thing! MS can do better than Vista. Vista needs to be fixed, or replaced, because most of us DO NOT WANT IT, and we don't like the idea of being extorted over DX10.

There are very, very few articles/blogs applauding Vista. Too few.

Since its release (premature, mind you) last year, there has been an unending deluge of negative articles, complaints, rants, and general dissatisfaction.

It seems to work alright for certain tech-savvy users who view as obvious things that the average home user would not. Then again, perhaps these users expect to deal with potentially severe problems from the beginning. Which is rather sad.

That's part of the problem, however. Good engineering is supposed to be virtually idiot-proof. Window is not. No OS is perfect, but disturbingly few are striving for it. There had better be good reasons for a learning curve.

An inferior, 7-year old OS has no business being in such measurable (vocal) demand over your latest and greatest.

But then again, this is Windows. And users eventually have to settle for what's there.

I agree with all the points in the article, including the "one version". Though that is not suitable to the corporate buyers and there should be a separate SKU for it, the "one" version, I belive, should exist for the consumer version.

Look at the grocery store. We have 10 brands of eggs now - each with Omega this, organic that. People don't know which to choose. They'll pick what they think is best (price and health wise). Ditto computers - price vs performance - AND simplicity. OSes have always been the most confusing thing to buy. There's always either many versions on the shelf or now, other choices. There's only one RedHat on shelves. But there's 4 or 5 Vista boxes. There's only one Adobe Photoshop.

I know my analogies probably aren't perfect. But, you have to look at this as the everday consumer. They're the ones buying this. Tech geeks like us have already decided what we want/don't want. Its for people that have no idea that think a CPU is the Ram and the motherboard and to stop viruses on the computer you need to inject it with something or throw it out.

What about the extended edition?

Funny, haha. It was an example. But I'm talking about Staples or the mom & pop type computer stores. They usually have one version of anything on the shelf. With Vista they're carrying 4 or 5. What if you're running a small business from home with no network? Home edition or Business edition?? Aero or no Areo? This just confuses people.

lol, yeah, I hear ya. Just pokin' fun.

It's simply because Windows is a massively used OS and this is quite widespread opinion.

Jeez, it's just a blog entry... "Desperate"? So everyone is desperate now if typing something in a blog?

LOL thats exactly what I have and until I built it I hated Vista. I really do understand the dislike of Vista and I think all the comparisons of how XP sucked at first are illogical at this point. This is way beyond that now.

And yet my single core 1.5GHz Pentium M Banias, 1GB RAM, and ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 with 64MB of RAM run Vista Ultimate just fine.

Puzzling.

Good luck running anything worthwhile at the same time.

Same here. My laptop runs on 1.5GHz and though I admit I have a slightly bigger video card (with more RAM) the only real difference is when it comes to gaming - which of course, is not related to Vista performance in any way.

Oh I do, every day.

It works much better under load (say, loading several large photographs into Photoshop at once, while having a web browser with several tabs open minimized, with Winamp open, and an IM application such as Pidgin running) than XP ever did.

So thanks for the luck, but I don't need it.

And most likely, with all the eye candy disabled, which renders Vista Ultimate pointless. Without any kind of proof, I am having a hard time believing you. I'm no enemy of Vista, but there is no doubt it that under a machine of any spec would not be able to compete with XP SP2. Perhaps you were running more than you knew, or software has improved since you last used XP, or you are trying to justify your purchase of Ultimate (assuming you did, which I doubt). There have been plenty of XP vs Vista benchmarks on the web, many posted on Neowin, all pretty much conclusive that XP does perform better than Vista under most circumstances.

I will admit, I misread your statement as your laptop having 64MB of RAM for some reason.. must have been a long day.

LOL I love how people seem to think that vista is only about eye-candy. Yeh..disabling eye-candy makes vista pointless.

Great thinking.

Right, because Vista has such an abundant feature set over that of XP. Even Bill Gates will agree. Or, maybe you consider these to be beneficial? Who doesn't love a little DRM? Come on now.. you belittle my statement but offer nothing to back yourself up. After having checked your profile I can see you've also purchased Vista Ultimate, so I can understand why you would be so hostile after wasting your money.

Lets see.

1. What DRM? Stop spreading that FUD story that was disproved more than a billion times.
2. Stability. A drive crash in Vista will NOT cause a BSOD. Hell I haven't even seen a BSOD in vista.
3. Protection. UAC etc.
4. Performance, to me and to quite a lot of other people Vista is faster than xp.
5. MUCH better sound system in terms of quality and performance.
6. Data recovery.
7. Looks nicer.

Is that enough proof for you? Or do you expect Vista to cook your dinner, do your homework for you too.

Oh and nope I haven't purchased Vista Ultimate. I got it free for beign a beta tester. I have purchased home premium for my desktop, and my old laptop now runs Vista business. So sorry to prove you wrong on that point too.

Read that goddamn article I posted. The one about the Cost Analysis of Vista Content Protection. And then tell me it has been "disproved".

Stability? I can't remember the last time I've had my XP system crash on me, the one I've had on for months straight. The only time it has crashed on me was due to a pair of RAM sticks that aren't working (tested with memTest and they are indeed defective).

Protection? UAC? I guess that would be useful for those who don't know what they're doing. But then those who don't know what they're doing complain about those features the most.

Performance, well, that is just plain bull. Like I said earlier, there are PLENTY of benchmarks with XP on top for most tests.

Sound... you're kidding right? Where did you ever get that idea? You must be comparing to different hardware. I have noticed zero difference between Vista Business and XP Pro.

Data recovery.. because this was impossible prior to XP. I would not trust an OS to do this, I would much rather use 3rd party software for that.

Looks nicer... with a performance hit. How contradictory is that? You go off about how it performs better than XP, yet any "gain" would have been negated by its nice looks. You can't have your pie and eat it too.

I love the last statement though.. shows your immaturity.

Read that goddamn article I posted. The one about the Cost Analysis of Vista Content Protection. And then tell me it has been "disproved".
- No thank you, I'm not going to read a 500 page arguement that from the first sentence proves it has nothing to do with the consumer or for the vast majority of companies.

Stability? I can't remember the last time I've had my XP system crash on me, the one I've had on for months straight. The only time it has crashed on me was due to a pair of RAM sticks that aren't working (tested with memTest and they are indeed defective).
- If a driver crashes in XP your windows WILL BSOD. Just because you haven't got it, doesn't mean nobody else hasnt. In Vista, it just gets reloaded. The amount of BSODs people will get on Vista is and will be ALWAYS a lot LESS than XP. Once again, if you haven't got any doesn't mean others dont.

Protection? UAC? I guess that would be useful for those who don't know what they're doing. But then those who don't know what they're doing complain about those features the most.
- Yes. because clicking a button is so hard. Most applications will not cause UAC prompts. The ones that do are a minority. For the most part, a lot of people haven't seen UAC prompts since they were first setting up their system. Second, you do know that a lot, and i mean A LOT, of people really don't know how to maintain their computer yeh? UAC helps them.

Performance, well, that is just plain bull. Like I said earlier, there are PLENTY of benchmarks with XP on top for most tests.
- There are also plenty of benchmarks that prove that Vista performs on par with XP and sometimes even better. Also, there are benchmarks that prove that XP performs better for some things.

Sound... you're kidding right? Where did you ever get that idea? You must be comparing to different hardware. I have noticed zero difference between Vista Business and XP Pro.
- You do know you can configure the sound processing options in Vista yeh? The OpenAL soundsystem is WAY better than the old directsound system that XP had. Don't believe me? Go look it up on google.

Data recovery.. because this was impossible prior to XP. I would not trust an OS to do this, I would much rather use 3rd party software for that.
- No it wasn't, there are a lot of programs which are able to recover deleted files. Some even from before XP. Vista [and even Mac OSX] has this implemented into the OS. It's not something to rely 100% on, but in most cases it is useful. I myself have had to recover a previous version of a file. Most data recovery programs just rely on replacing files that are deleted, not files that are changed.

Looks nicer... with a performance hit. How contradictory is that? You go off about how it performs better than XP, yet any "gain" would have been negated by its nice looks. You can't have your pie and eat it too.
- It performs better than XP because the desktop composition engine uses the GPU. Aero/Dreamscene etc are all GPU powered. So it doesn't cause a performance hit if you have a low-end nvidia/ati gpu...let alone a good one. People have got Aero running on intel int. graphics and yet no performance hit. If you find that your system lags with aero, just disable aero. yet again, no performance hit.

I love the last statement though.. shows your immaturity.

- Because being sarcastic means im immature. Get over it.

Last edited by / -Razorfold on 18 Mar 2008 - 05:24

You are classic.. You seem to have trouble reading.

That article has everything to do with anyone planning on using HD content on their vista machine. It spurred the whole HD-DVD key fiasco if you can recall.

I can't remember the last time a driver has caused a crash for me.. you're talking about something that is pretty improbable.

UAC, like i mentioned, might help those who don't know what they're doing. But it is quite annoying when it asks. Just a button press? What exactly does it ask? Cancel or allow.. they will just allow anything. It's a confirm button. I've seen it first hand, people getting frustrated and just hitting allow, including professors (computer science ones at that).

Like i said, trouble reading. MOST tests.. MOST. This does not mean all, and this implies the very thing you used as a reply.

OpenAL system does not "sound" better. The difference would be that it takes less processing power since soundcard makers like Creative who already rely on OAL can now access it properly on the hardware level as opposed to going through a layer to get there. Most people use integrated soundboards anyway.. most of the work is done by the CPU. So if there is any processing difference between DirectSound and OAL, which i doubt would be significant anyway, you won't see much change, performance wise.

Data recovery - My statement was sarcasm. I admit, it should have said Prior to Vista.

I know it is GPU powered, but because it is using DX9, there is CPU overhead. It is guaranteed that it will use more resources than basic GDI will. What about programs that use DX? They don't take a performance hit? Remember, a lot of DX applications are actually windowed, in this case Aero is not disabled. But you misunderstood. It's contradictory, because if you disable Aero, it does not look nicer, but performs better. And if you enable it, it performs worse, but looks better. Like I said, you can't have both.

And your last statement.. no it was just immaturity: "so sorry to prove you wrong again" - how old are you again?

At any rate, I'm finished arguing. The fanboyism has become clear. You've named a few features, some that exist in XP and others that show little difference between operating systems, therefore it comes down to: Vista is just eye candy. And a whole lot of bull****.

http://i25.tinypic.com/2i7sjsz.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/2ui841j.jpg - For what it's worth.

Lying accomplishes nothing.

I'm sorry that you don't know how to maintain a computer, but that doesn't mean other people can't.

EDIT: Oh, I should note that I don't get constant drive thrashing (very little in fact), and my benchmark performance is frighteningly close to XP's.

HAHAHAHAHHA *Pause for breath* hahahahahahahahaha

Ok lets see.

1. Did you reinstall windows to get rid of the bloat Dell puts on it? - Nope.
2. Did you upgrade your graphic card drivers from say nvidia.com or laptopvideo2go.com? - Nope.
3. Constant drive trashing - Oh please....stop. Just because you look at the graph and see thats the green line is always on top....doesn't mean your hardrive is being trashed. Learn to read the units. Oh unless you call an average maximum of 30kbps -> 500kbps bandwidth on your drive "trashing"...
4. SLI benchmarks have NOTHING to do with Vista. Just because nVidia cannot seem to release a driver that works well with SLI doesn't make Vista crap. Upgrade your drivers, disable SLI and THEN run your benchmark. THEN come here and say its bad.
5. You know dell does sell computers with XP or VISTA yeh? So its not like they are forcing you to do anything. Just because you can't seem to check up the computer you buy properly, and instead just click on whatever looks the most expensive doesn't mean other people are that stupid.
6. Don't lie.

Oh and my 2.0ghz pentium M, 2.0gb ram, nvidia 6800 go, DOES run vista perfectly. With almost no noticable lag. and YES it is faster than XP. Want more proof? I had to remove one of my 1gb sticks because it got damaged and whilst waiting for another, I ran my comp with only 1gb ram. Yes it was slightly slower than with 2gb, BUT it was still faster than XP and for the most part there were NO noticable lag instances.

Take your trolling and bull**** somewhere else.

Ho hum, well I suppose I could answer the obvious fanboy.

1. For your fanboy info yes I wiped out the preinstalled vista garbage just as I would have done had it been preloaded XP from Dell, they throw in all manner of useless garbage, I then installed vista with the included dvd that does not contain any of the dell bloat.

2. Of course I used the latest drivers for chipset and graphics, before that I used driver cleaner as always.

3. The hard drive was constantly grinding, as it did on my other machine when I tried vista several months ago, it was non-stop grinding and thrashing, I tried many of the so-called "fixes" that people have posted that claimed to take care of the problem, of course none of them worked.
Benchmarks were horrible, file transfers were ridiculously slow, networking was slow (when it decided to even work).

4. As predicted you blame it on someone else, typical fanboyism, this time blame nvidia.

5. On the contrary, fanboy, the same dell XPS system was available with XP preinstalled for extra money, if I didn't have an extra unused version of XP64 laying around I would have certainly spent the extra 50 bucks for XP.
But wait, Vista is supposed to be the latest and greatest right? why not at least give it a try with a faster machine?
Only according to you fanboys is it better, the real world experience proves you utterly wrong as usual, I figured I would at least give it a try and it failed miserably.

6. I'm not the one lying here, obviously.

You fanboys are always good for a few laughs.

You are incorrect, when a fanboy praises the law breaking monster known as microsoft he/she/it will always resort to outright lies, it makes it easy to point out a fanboy from the rest of the crowd.
I don't doubt that you were running vista on a slow system, I simply doubt that it runs as good as you claim.

Unless you have proof that I am lying, stop calling me a liar. I don't appreciate attacks on my character.

You also need to work out your issues. You're in denial. What would I gain from lying to you? I'm not on Microsofts payroll. I don't get favors for speaking out about falsehoods.

Do I doubt that you had a bad experience? No. I've had bad Vista experiences. Never with a clean install, however. OEM installs of Vista, as well as XP, are a nightmare.

But you need to get over whatever is wrong with you. Realize that there are people out there who have good experiences with Vista.

Last edited by waruikoohii on 18 Mar 2008 - 02:40

Lets fix your points.

1. I am NOT a fanboy, just because I am sick of Vista FUD reports does not mean I will support Microsoft to death.
2. The file transfer and networking slowness was fixed with a hotfix like um 5-6 months ago? If you had updated your vista with all the updates then you would have known. What next? oh yeh im sure you updated....
3. You said Vista is forced down people's throats, I corrected you.
4. nVidia infact is actually at fault here. Don't believe me? Go check laptopvideo2go.com forums and read what people have to say. Also, SLI IS nvidia's problem, not Microsoft.
5. Sadly i'm not lying.

Also, if you want people to believe you the first time , learn to post more information. The way you started your arguement, basically said I got a brand new quad core SLI, and vista was a piece of **** so i uninstalled it. Did you say you did a clean install? No. Did you say you updated your drives? No. Did you say you did all the windows updates? No.

So rather than admitting you were wrong, stop calling everyone a fanboy and a liar.

Last edited by / -Razorfold on 18 Mar 2008 - 05:22

You were reviewing Vista RC1, though. There were MAJOR improvements made to compatibility, performance etc from RC1-RC2 and RC2-Final.

Last edited by / -Razorfold on 18 Mar 2008 - 05:25

The fanboys are revolting.