What was it that made Vista so bad?

[Billaguana]

I guess I truly don't understand what it was that had made Vista so bad. I have always been told that it was sooooo bad, however I just see it as a younger Windows 7. The one thing I have heard, and has made since in my head, was that the problem with Vista was that it was implemented on computers that werent ready for it. They were still building computers to the XP specs and tried to load Vista on it.

[firey]

Microsoft changed the version from 5.1 to 6.0 which apparently b0rked all the drivers, so they all had to be redone for Vista. Also MS introduced the WDDM and such that drivers weren't equipped to handle. This is just what I have read, but seems the fault was more in the drivers and the hardware interfacing.

[Stetson]

1) Hardware manufacturers didn't have supporting hardware and drivers ready despite a pretty long development cycle. Also even though manufacturers had some truly Vista-ready computers shipping, they continued to ship some that were underpowered or had driver problems. This was also a problem for people trying to upgrade older PCs.

2) Most major brand PCs that came with Vista that I've looked at came with absurd amounts of crapware and unnecessary things like custom WiFi connection software.

Vista really wasn't too bad when installed straight from a Microsoft disc/image onto a PC with hardware that was up-to-date at the time and had supporting drivers.

[Dot Matrix]

Microsoft changed the version from 5.1 to 6.0 which apparently b0rked all the drivers, so they all had to be redone for Vista. Also MS introduced the WDDM and such that drivers weren't equipped to handle. This is just what I have read, but seems the fault was more in the drivers and the hardware interfacing.

The version change had no effect on the drivers. It was the security features and other API changes that broke old/poor drivers.

[XP1]

There were multiple reasons.

One reason was the low availability of drivers when Vista was released.

Device manufacturers had plenty of time while Vista was in beta test to build drivers for the operating system. However, mostly all manufacturers procrastinated and were unable to deliver device drivers on time. Even several months after Vista's public release, manufacturers started to release drivers. Because the release of drivers was very slow, people complained that their devices would not work with Vista.

This reason is also applies to software that deeply integrates with the operating system. For this kind of software, customers had to wait several months, a year, or more for the software developer to release an update for Vista.

[Draconian Guppy]

IMO third party vendors not delivering appropriate drivers on time. Like pointed above, it was NOT microsofts fault devices wouldn't work adequately in vista.

[Joshie]

As has been said, it was pretty much a crappy hardware support situation all around, and mostly the fault of hardware vendors. It was also a time when people were used to doing things a certain way on XP, and suddenly that way didn't work exactly the same way anymore and they cried about it.

Then people wanted to use all the same deeply hooked applications from the XP era, designed with a 9x mindset, and then wondered why things broke. 3-4 years of the Vista era broke these bad habits, letting people suddenly transition easily to Windows 7 (which really is just a very refined evolution of Vista).

A little bit of everybody involved was to blame for Vista's bad rep.

[The Dark Knight]

1) Hardware manufacturers didn't have supporting hardware and drivers ready despite a pretty long development cycle. Also even though manufacturers had some truly Vista-ready computers shipping, they continued to ship some that were underpowered or had driver problems. This was also a problem for people trying to upgrade older PCs.

2) Most major brand PCs that came with Vista that I've looked at came with absurd amounts of crapware and unnecessary things like custom WiFi connection software.

Vista really wasn't too bad when installed straight from a Microsoft disc/image onto a PC with hardware that was up-to-date at the time and had supporting drivers.

+100

Rubbish drivers were the primary cause of Vista's failure, with nVidia's drivers being responsible for a staggering 40% of Vista crashes. The average Joe didn't know any better and blamed Microsoft for the whole thing.

[Davo]

Lack of drivers and big changes is what did it for me. I feel like Windows 7 was worth those changes but without any discernable benefits Vista still felt overly complicated to me. They did major GUI changes but it still felt like XP with everything moved around and UAC tacked on at the end.

[farmeunit]

For me it much more resource hungry. I had a 2.8Ghz with 2GB of RAM and it ran horrible. Network transfers were slow even after SP1. When copy and pasting, I couldn't right-click on the folder and paste, I had to click to select, THEN right-click and paste.

Those were my biggest gripes, and I can't say I miss it.

Win7 has been a MUCH better experience.

[Raa]

Numerous reasons, some of which were listed above.

I'm just glad it's over and we have Windows 7.

It's just that much better! Never had any issues with it at all on any computer I run it on at home or work. I cannot say the same for Vista, even today.

[cork1958]

The main reason was it was just a flat out POS. You didn't have to even run it for 5 minutes to realize that!!

I bought a brand new computer (first time I've ever done that) when Vista first came out. It wasn't the most radical thing on the shelves, but was over what the minimum specs for Vista were supposed to be. I had that thing wiped clean and down graded to XP in half a day!!

That same machine now runs Windows 7 Ultimate just as well as it did XP. Better, in fact!!

[Brandon H Supervisor]

not just drivers were the problem

from personal experience, Vista was poorly optimized at best and tended to slowly eat away at the host computer

let me put it this way, on a computer that XP ran well on that vista should also be able to handle, Vista ran as slow as crap, but then you put the even newer 7 on it and it runs smoothly again

and don't even get me started about how annoying UAC was on vista before SP1 was released

besides the drivers issue, microsoft really did rush vista there at the end, thus making things not as tweaked and optimized as they should have been

[Azies]

It arrived too soon, with poor driver support. However, if you were to downgrade to Vista, you'd feel very little difference between Windows 7, and Windows Vista. In my case, I had a mid range PC AT THE TIME, and it didn't handle Aero all that fantastically, it was just naturally slower than Windows XP, but that's to be expected.

[Neyht Member]

Seven handles audio switching better. The dual display management was reworked. I found all this out when I bought a wireless hdmi converter for my Dad.

UAC was reworked so you don't get prompts nearly as often as on Vista . Windows seven seems to boot faster on my computer.

Anyone who uses windows 7 will not go back to Vista.

Windows 7 is what made Vista so bad.

[Guest xiphi]

The whole "Vista capable" thing is another reason why it got a bad rep. I wouldn't even run XP on those recommendations.

[timster]

imo, it was the OEMs packing so much crap into their Vista machines that you'd have a whole bunch of programs you'd never use or need starting up on the first boot after the OOBE

I never got a crash with an install using a clean Microsoft .iso and doing a clean install. I never do an upgrade from an OS to another OS

[+Warwagon MVC]

like custom WiFi connection software.

That is one thing that always ****es me off. Leave that ****ing wifi connection software off the god damn computer. Windows makes it much simpler. All that ****ty software does is confuse the **** out of the user, and me as well, when i'm trying to support their god damn ass over the phone. When they go to connect the normal way if it says "Something else is managing the wireless network, I have no god damn idea what software is doing it. Because there are so many I can't visualize the software, so when doing phone support i'm driving blind. GAAARRR!!!

[Guest xiphi]

That is one thing that always ****es me off. Leave that ****ing wifi connection software off the god damn computer. Windows makes it much simpler. All that ****ty software does is confuse the **** out of the user, and me as well, when i'm trying to support their god damn ass over the phone. When they go to connect the normal way if it says "Something else is managing the wireless network, I have no god damn idea what software is doing it. Because there are so many I can't visualize the software, so when doing phone support i'm driving blind. GAAARRR!!!

I get puzzled by this, as well. It's frustrating to see redundant software. Search toolbars fall under that category. Some people even swear they NEED the software Linksys says to install when they get a new router. Support over the phone is bad enough.

[Sadelwo]

1) Hardware manufacturers didn't have supporting hardware and drivers ready despite a pretty long development cycle. Also even though manufacturers had some truly Vista-ready computers shipping, they continued to ship some that were underpowered or had driver problems. This was also a problem for people trying to upgrade older PCs.

2) Most major brand PCs that came with Vista that I've looked at came with absurd amounts of crapware and unnecessary things like custom WiFi connection software.

Vista really wasn't too bad when installed straight from a Microsoft disc/image onto a PC with hardware that was up-to-date at the time and had supporting drivers.

Pretty much this. When Vista launched and someone said their PC kept crashing and was slow it would be a machine with 512MB of RAM loading 10 useless software on startup and BSODing with an nv----.sys error. Upgrade them to 1GB, reinstall from scratch with the latest driver available and they were happy again. I'm suprised Microsoft hasn't reprimanded nvidia for souring Vista's reputation with thier intial drivers, also seeing that laptops produced around 2006-2008 came with faulty Nvidia GPU's that overheated and killed the mainboard didn't help much.

That is one thing that always ****es me off. Leave that ****ing wifi connection software off the god damn computer. Windows makes it much simpler. All that ****ty software does is confuse the **** out of the user, and me as well, when i'm trying to support their god damn ass over the phone. When they go to connect the normal way if it says "Something else is managing the wireless network, I have no god damn idea what software is doing it. Because there are so many I can't visualize the software, so when doing phone support i'm driving blind. GAAARRR!!!

I was so happy when Windows 7 came out and a laptop would boot to a clean desktop with no added junk, after SP1 however I see some manufacturers adding wifi utilities again. Seriously? Haven't we been through this already? Let's just have the consistent windows interface, its robust, easy and it WORKS. Leave it alone man.

[notuptome2004]

What should of been

Prototyping the Windows Aero interface

Windows Aero notification Windows longhorn back in the day

Windows Aero Tradeoffs and balances Windows longhorn presentation

[Solid Knight]

It was a product that had to break in the market to change. It had to break in hardware and software developers. It had to break in users.

[Joshie]

What should of been

Prototyping the Windows Aero interface

Windows Aero notification Windows longhorn back in the day

Windows Aero Tradeoffs and balances Windows longhorn presentation

The original Longhorn concepts were awful. I realize a lot of people like to look at anything that ever "didn't happen" and decide things would have been better 'if only', and that's cute, but naive.

Those early demos had tons of critics at the time, readily forgotten today, and easily shrugged off a cop out like "well it couldn't have been as bad as Vista!!!1" It reminds me of people who praise the glory of XP, completely ignoring its first 2-3 years on the market when it was ridiculed for being the Fisher Price OS and all the cool kids said they were 'downgrading' to Windows 2000.

Those videos make Windows look like Microsoft made an OS out of the old Microsoft Network from Windows 95. Everything about the visual style screams MS's online services and the old way they looked. No thanks.

/also, HAVE. Should HAVE been. There is no form of English in the history of all English-speaking peoples the world over in which "should of" makes sense.

[Gerowen]

It just felt REALLY slow compared to XP. 7 still doesn't feel as snappy as XP. In regards to its features though, I didn't have any major problems or complaints, I just wish it wasn't so SLLOOOOOW. I mean seriously, install a fresh copy of Vista, then install SP2. You'll be sitting there for about an hour, and have to sit through a couple of reboots at least. Why they can't just do what every Linux based OS I've ever used does and replace the old files with new ones, reboot one time, and be done, I'll never know. Windows Updates are painfully and unnecessarily lengthy.

[Mockingbird]

That problem was that manufacturers decided to push out buggy drivers.