Switching back... to XP from Vista


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"Now, if you were referring to people who simply start a thread about their whims and other unimportant details in general, and you were not referring to the above user in particular, then I'd tend to agree with you. Although the line between unimportant vs. legitimate and/or of interest to others is often a blurry one at best."

You are right and have a point there. Sorry about that I just get tired of people saying switching back to this and that. I think if it works then stay with it.

Hey no problem. I just was't sure about your meaning. Yes, the whole "OMG I just switched!!" thing can get rather tiresome at times, although I'm happy for them - it's good to see such enthusiam. But it's yet another thread about the same thing . . . so I can understand the objections to it.

I think what bothers you most - and which bothers me as well - is just making a "this is crap so I'm switching" blanket statement without at least giving reasons or outlining problems.

I appreciate the interest in the thread and the feedback. I don't exactly create many threads around here and try to actually post something meaningful when I do write things. I would hope that other who switch back find this thread as a place where they do not feel alone, and that the issues that drove them back to XP do not make them "weird" in any way. I think in the coming weeks there will be more and more "switchers" going back to XP. Vista has many issuse for some that may take some real time to workout.

The switch to Vista is/was nothing like that of XP, where a Windows 2000 driver base provided manufacturers something to build upon. I also don't think that blaming everything on drivers makers is correct either. I think the things that were missed in beta testing are proving to be more "devastating" to the user experience than any other upgrade that I have experienced.

Another beta tester here - and I'm not ready to make the switch to Vista just yet, so I reverted to my original XP installation.

With the help of nLite and a few importnat tweaks/mods I have my XP rig running just the way I like it.

yea apple products are great eh?

just look at my iPod shuffle and iPod video ... they both broke weeks after the warranty was over... i'm.. opps "I'm" so happy NOT!

anyway like i have said before Vista its good, has its issues but they will be fixed. Its just like when XP came out... everyone said it sucked and now everyone loves it.

I have never loved Windows XP.

I always thought it was clumsy, slow and buggy but compared to Vista

:shiftyninja:

:crazy:

:angry:

:crazy:

:shiftyninja:

Windows XP is a Bugatti Veyron.

Really don't get what you guys are doing to f*** Vista installs up as badly as you are.

Never had any of these problems in so far about 100 installs.

It's easy: I installed all the drivers on my brother's computer, restarted, and boom nearly all the services were disabled :wacko:, which means no Aero, no audio, no network, ...

Really don't get what you guys are doing to f*** Vista installs up as badly as you are.

Never had any of these problems in so far about 100 installs.

For one, I might consider that post an attack on my credentials. I don't see how you are using 100 computers a day for all of the things I use them for. You must be really talented. I guess that certainly trumps my MCSE, MCDBA and CCNA certs.

1) Data corruption

I, too, had data corruption problems -- until I did the following:

-- Uninstalled Vista

-- Downloaded the NVidia platform drivers for Vista, including the SATA-IDE drivers

-- Installed Vista from the DVD (not from inside XP), used F6 to load the SATA-IDE drivers from diskette

Been six weeks now and not a single data corruption. Before the reinstall, was getting data corruptions every day --not only in the Vista partition, but also in the XP and data partitions.

I didn't have the problem in XP because the CD that came with the motherboard loaded the Nvidia SATA-IDE drivers. When Vista installed from inside XP, it did NOT load the Vista version of the SATA-IDE drivers. Had to get them from Nvidia.

2) Drivers

Yes, lots of them are garbage -- but they're getting better. Software vendors are coming out with Vista versions every day. Other vendors are coming out with improved Vista drivers. Remember, not everything worked when XP first came out, either.

My main complaint about Vista is not about MS, but about the hardware vendors that have decided to NOT support Vista for products they are still selling on the shelves! I can understand not supporting something that's 5-7 years old, but if you (the vendor) are still selling it today, then you (the vendor) need to provide full blown Vista support for your product -- or put large red stickers on your boxes that say "Warning: This product is not compatible with Windows Vista. The vendor has decided not to support this product. Use at your own risk".

I have had Ultimate for 4 weeks now.

1) I have had to do 2 full restores due to corrupted discs, which never happened in XP.

2) Drivers are garbage. This is not the fault of MS, but why should I live with it?

I understand. I went through the Win 3.11 - 95, NT to Win2k and the OS9 - OSX upgrades and nothing has been like this. Maybe I have become spoiled in the past few years and have forgotten what everyday computing was like back in those days.

I also went through several upgrades, the most notable being:

  • The change from Win3.1 to Win95 (about two weeks after it came out) was a truly ground-shaking improvement. I really loved the new start menu and the other new features of Win95. After I had installed it and tried it out, I instantly knew that I would never want to go back to Win3.1!
    I had no problems with drivers, and no problems with apps either (except for some vintage Dos apps, but I simply switched to more pleasant Windows apps).
  • The change from Win98 to WinXP (just one week after it came out) was a significant improvement (although not as ground-shaking as the move from Win3.1 to Win95). I really liked the greatly improved stability and the other new features that came with the NT basis, and the theming capability (Luna etc.) was the icing on the top. After installing XP, I only went back to Win98 on ever rarer occassions, and about two months after I installed XP, I removed Win98 entirely. I didn't have any driver troubles or problems with app compatibility, so he transition was quite smooth.
  • Then came Vista, the OS that had been delayed cuntless times and eventually took over five years. If I look at the "final" (ahem) Rtm version, I can't help but wonder what took so much time. At first, I was cooed by Vista's bling-bling stuff, like Aero and Flip3D. However, once I got used to it, I saw that these were pretty much all that set Vista apart: nice looks, but nothing behind it. There are no noteable improvements in Vista over XP, much less significant ones. Worse yet, many things that were fine in XP don't work properly in Vista anymore, or are even intentionally broken by poor design (e.g. the display properties with the single tabs). Badly implemented pseudo-security features, just there to keep stupid people from doing stupid things, interfere with your everyday work. All this creates a very half-assed and unfinished impression. Then there's still the pitiful driver support (even now), and many apps don't work properly or not at all - it's especially bad with games.
    While the changes from Win3.1 to Win95 (4.0) and then the change to XP (5.1) fully deserved an increased main version number, there nothing in Vista to rectify it only half-way. Vista is much more like 5.2, or even only 5.11, rather than 6.0 - nothing but a huge disappointment.

One other thing about Vista: The appearance functions have 0 usability. It makes no sense whatsoever. Why are appearance and themes separate.. isn't a theme an appearance? Why does it take so many screens to do so little? Can't almost all of those functions be consolidated to a couple of clicks?

Yes, the Display Properties (which were just fine in XP) is one of the many examples for poor design in Vista. It's absolutely retarded that you have all these single tab windows, the appearance functions suck - as you said, it makes absolutely no sense at all. It seems they only took this long to release Vista to break stuff that was fine in the first place, and leave the rest unfinished.

I just converted from Vista to Ubuntu/XP dual boot config. Vista has alot of room to improve before it can become a 'standard' desktop OS.

Same here. It's very interesting that I have a lot less problems with Ubuntu 7.04 Herd5 (which is a pre-release version) than with Vista Rtm (which is supposed to be a final version... yeah right :pinch: ). Now there's really food for thought.

I beta tested Vista, I have to say, it was not near ready for release. MS should have worked on a decent service pack three in the mean time, one that really would give XP a kick.

Yes, nowhere near ready for release is spot on.

MS didn't release a Service Pack 3 for XP yet because then, even less people would switch to Vista.

btw, there's another thread about switching back to XP from Vista here:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=545119

  • 1 month later...
I've been using Vista for about 6 weeks now, and not had a single issue. Installation was flawless and quick, and my system is fast, secure, and looks awesome, and it works without any problems whatsoever.

I love Vista :wub:

Same here. I've been using Vista since it hit retail, and I'd never go back to XP. To me, I don't care about the problems anyone else may be having... It works flawlessly for me, and that's all that matters.

Same here. I've been using Vista since it hit retail, and I'd never go back to XP. To me, I don't care about the problems anyone else may be having... It works flawlessly for me, and that's all that matters.

Me too. I even did an in-place upgrade from XP to Ultimate and have had NO problems.

Although, I do have some older hardware built off of an Intel chipset.

Nvidia is probably to blame for all the data corruption issues. NForce FTL. :x

  • 3 weeks later...
I've been using Vista for about 6 weeks now, and not had a single issue. Installation was flawless and quick, and my system is fast, secure, and looks awesome, and it works without any problems whatsoever.

I love Vista :wub:

70 days here :yes: on the same first install as well.

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 10 months later...
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