Vista Annoyances Resolved

[soldier1st]

I do have superfetch enabled. I tested my system without it, i see no difference in performance. My improvement was when i went from single to raid hdd setup, not so much from Superfetch. So anyway it's ON. UAC is useless to me. The last time i got Virus or Malicious Worm was back in 1996. I know what i'm doing, so UAC is really useless to me and whole run as Administrator crap. There is nothing UAC can protect me from that i'm not aware of. As I said i know what i'm doing when i go to Internet and etc. Btw i'm only user on my computer. Windows Defender + Windows Firewall + AVG8 + Hardware Router is enough for me.

GUI in Vista sucks cause everything requires extra click. When you save file in Windows XP you had nice buttons Desktop, Network, My Computer on left side of save file dialog. In Vista you have ****ing scroll up and down, you just get tired of it doing over and over for each file cause stupid thing never remembers your last location.

Windows Applications and GUI itself is so unconsistent, and it appears that all those modules of Windows are chopped from different OSs and somebody put them together with AERO Glass on top of it. AERO Glass is great but unfortunately applied to wrong design. I think Office 2007 GUI is solution for future Windows GUI and I hope they will do it. I use Vista x64 since December. I can't really complain about Software and Hardware support for Vista x64. It's really going well there. I don't suffer from bad performance as well, and i can't cause whole system runs on Quad CPU with GTX280 SLI and 8GB + Raid 0 Setup (it's perfect for gaming and my work in VS2008). My complain is mostly about GUI, and oh well UAC. But i see it useful for other people, to protect them from themselves first and then from outside world.

Windows Search 4.0 is good, runs fast even though i don't use it that much, but it can be very useful if you really have a lot of 'junk' in your computer.

When is Microsoft going to upgrade useless WordPad, Paint ?

i do agree that ms should do something about wordpad and paint like either remove them or upgrade them in some way.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

UAC is useless to me. The last time i got Virus or Malicious Worm was back in 1996. I know what i'm doing, so UAC is really useless to me and whole run as Administrator crap. There is nothing UAC can protect me from that i'm not aware of. As I said i know what i'm doing when i go to Internet and etc.

So... if you visit a web page that takes advantage of a bug in Flash to install crap, steal or corrupt your data, or impersonate you and turn your computer into a spam bot... how exactly are you going to prevent that from happening? What if it were an e-mail that takes advantage of your e-mail reader?

Do you use an IM client? What if someone sends a maliciously crafted message that exploits a bug in your IM client?

The best defense for all these things is UAC. Power users will understand this better than anybody.

[abcdefg]

Also, if the GUI is inconsistent that means you have several programs that have their own unique skin. There is nothing Microsoft can do about that.

Sure.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/mi...media/vista.png

Any comments?

[Silverado Nomads]

Sure.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/mi...media/vista.png

Any comments?

Live messenger is a given, obviously. I didn't think I needed to state that. It's a whole skin. As opposed to a few buttons and shadow graphics.

Oh no, the buttons inside are not all the same. Whatever shall I do, I'm talking about the surrounded toolbar pane. What you guys ask for is impossible. There is nothing WRONG with it anyway.

Of all the things to complain about, you complain about that? Then you give a snippy little comment, as if you somehow won something.

Notice that all the same windows have the same title bars. It is consistent. In an OS as big as Vista, or even MAC, that's all you can hope for. Is a large issue? No.

Any comments?

[sn00pie]

It's not a big deal, as long as the OS runs stable and doesn't crash on you for absolutely no reason. With proper maintenence Windows can be a charm to use. I've been using XP Pro on 256MB of RAM for over 8 years with little hiccups or problems. I do weekly maintenence like Crap Cleaner, Spyware scans bi-weekly, I never defrag, and I usually virus scan once a year.

It's just stupid how you can't run more than 3GB of RAM on Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit) from what I've heard atleast.

[Preppy Veteran]

That sure seems like a photoshop. What source article is it from? I thought we had gotten away from using faked images. Seems like whatever point was trying to be made could have been made more honestly.

There's never absolutely no reason for a crash, you just need to understand it and get to the root cause. *thumbs up*

[ViperAFK]

It's not a big deal, as long as the OS runs stable and doesn't crash on you for absolutely no reason. With proper maintenence Windows can be a charm to use. I've been using XP Pro on 256MB of RAM for over 8 years with little hiccups or problems. I do weekly maintenence like Crap Cleaner, Spyware scans bi-weekly, I never defrag, and I usually virus scan once a year.

It's just stupid how you can't run more than 3GB of RAM on Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit) from what I've heard atleast.

That's a limitation of the 32 bit architecture not windows.

[7Dash8]

It's not a big deal, as long as the OS runs stable and doesn't crash on you for absolutely no reason. With proper maintenence Windows can be a charm to use. I've been using XP Pro on 256MB of RAM for over 8 years with little hiccups or problems. I do weekly maintenence like Crap Cleaner, Spyware scans bi-weekly, I never defrag, and I usually virus scan once a year.

You never defrag?? What, you want a prize for not doing something that's actually very important? The ignorance is strong in this one..

[ViperAFK]

It's not a big deal, as long as the OS runs stable and doesn't crash on you for absolutely no reason. With proper maintenence Windows can be a charm to use. I've been using XP Pro on 256MB of RAM for over 8 years with little hiccups or problems. I do weekly maintenence like Crap Cleaner, Spyware scans bi-weekly, I never defrag, and I usually virus scan once a year.

It's just stupid how you can't run more than 3GB of RAM on Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit) from what I've heard atleast.

I agree with your point, but defragging should have more of an impact than using ccleaner and should always be part of windows maintenance. Even if you only do it once a month it is very important. I really like vista's defrag which does it automatically. This is really good because many non tech-savvy users never defrag.

[Preppy Veteran]

(I stand corrected: the image is not a photoshop: Windows Media Player itself is in deskband mode, and the "Windows Media Player" image seen there is actually a screenshot pasted into notepad. This thus resolves why you see the player in both modes simultaneously. It's as such a dishonest view of a possible desktop, though, but then again who knows what it's meant to indicate.)

[HawkMan]

(I stand corrected: the image is not a photoshop: Windows Media Player itself is in deskband mode, and the "Windows Media Player" image seen there is actually a screenshot pasted into notepad. This thus resolves why you see the player in both modes simultaneously. It's as such a dishonest view of a possible desktop, though, but then again who knows what it's meant to indicate.)

It's meant to indicate that Vista's ui is consistant by demonstartign that he cna choose diferent color themes and styles (new and classic) for the varius office/studio suites.

it's stupid, since Office 2k7 sets the style globaly, I believe so there should be some trickery. either way, changign style between different office windows and diffeent Studio instances is meaningless for that comparison, they're application styles and not Vista styles anyway.

[CentralDogma]

A good article, with some interesting information.

As far as Vista annoyances, I only have two. Driver support and slow file operations.

As far as driver support, it hasn?t been too bad, the only thing that I carried over from my old machine that doesn?t work is an old webcam who?s manufacturer has, unfortunately, disappeared off the face of this planet, so it?s probably not going to get Vista compatible drivers anytime soon. A few devices don?t quite work 100 percent, my TV-tuner is having audio problems and my mother board isn?t outputting to the front audio jacks(I assume this is a driver/ OS issue, but haven?t really investigated further). None of these are of much importance and this is to be expected with a new OS (just look at the transition from Windows 9x systems to Windows NT systems, many had to buy a whole new computer and check for compatibility with all the software and peripherals they bought).

File operations are my main concern with Vista. This was barely mentioned in the article, if at all, but it seems like such a huge problem. I have noticed this especially with deletions. It seems Vista likes to go down through each folder and recursively delete the condense rather than simply deleting or moving the pointer to the folder. This results in the dialog box scrolling to the end and then bouncing back continuously. Many may not consider this a huge problem, but as someone who has tried to delete a folder filled with source code on Vista, I can tell it is a huge mistake that Microsoft made in changing the way file operations are handled in Windows.

[Silverado Nomads]

Yeah, he is. Read some of his other posts.

Was trying to be nice.. but you're right.. heh.. oh well.

Read through his posts.. my god.. he's like the ultimate forum troll. He totally hates any product with microsoft attached.. yet is posting in the windows support forums like it's his life line.

Sigh.

Edited August 27, 2008 by Kharhaz

[Mandator]

Thanks for that great read and quite useful :)

[jjrambo]

So... if you visit a web page that takes advantage of a bug in Flash to install crap, steal or corrupt your data, or impersonate you and turn your computer into a spam bot... how exactly are you going to prevent that from happening? What if it were an e-mail that takes advantage of your e-mail reader?

Do you use an IM client? What if someone sends a maliciously crafted message that exploits a bug in your IM client?

The best defense for all these things is UAC. Power users will understand this better than anybody.

I use IM, Windows Live only and i have only few selected friends on it. I never accept anything from anybody, by the way i only visit few sites. Put it this way, i know what i'm doing. AVG is pretty good with detecting any Trojan, Worm, Malicious Code or Cookie tracking things. Also if you google for something it will check each site before you click on it. If it's suspicious it puts red flag. Btw, i never keep any sensitive data in computer neither i store info into cookies.

I only visit few sites mostly Microsoft.com, MSDN for my work in VS2008. As far as gaming, I have Steam which takes care of any updates. I never install any software on my machine unless i try it first on box disconected from the network. It's my testing box. For Email i Use MS Outlook which is pretty good with junk emails, it takes cares of them.

[zhangm Supervisor]

I use IM, Windows Live only and i have only few selected friends on it. I never accept anything from anybody, by the way i only visit few sites. Put it this way, i know what i'm doing. AVG is pretty good with detecting any Trojan, Worm, Malicious Code or Cookie tracking things. Also if you google for something it will check each site before you click on it. If it's suspicious it puts red flag. Btw, i never keep any sensitive data in computer neither i store info into cookies.

If you know what you're doing, then you should already know that you are not in complete control, that there are cases in which unknown or obscure software vulnerabilities are exploited. UAC is another layer of protection that helps protect against unforeseen circumstances, and it is probably one of the best proactive solutions to a constantly evolving problem.

[PermaSt0ne]

I use IM, Windows Live only and i have only few selected friends on it. I never accept anything from anybody, by the way i only visit few sites. Put it this way, i know what i'm doing. AVG is pretty good with detecting any Trojan, Worm, Malicious Code or Cookie tracking things. Also if you google for something it will check each site before you click on it. If it's suspicious it puts red flag. Btw, i never keep any sensitive data in computer neither i store info into cookies.

I only visit few sites mostly Microsoft.com, MSDN for my work in VS2008. As far as gaming, I have Steam which takes care of any updates. I never install any software on my machine unless i try it first on box disconected from the network. It's my testing box. For Email i Use MS Outlook which is pretty good with junk emails, it takes cares of them.

it does not matter what your browsing habbits are or "if you know what you're doing". you are STILL vulnerable

you don't have to click on anything to get a worm, you just have to be connected to the internet. you don't have to click on anything to be hacked, just be on the internet. you don't have to click on anything to get screwed by a DNS bug (like the one that was mentioned a lot last week), you just have to use the internet. MS Outlook has flaws. IM clients have flaws. Sandbox's have flaws. EVERYTHING has flaws that can be exploited

hackers, crackers, virus writters. they all don't just sit on their asses making pretty prompts for you to click "yes" on :rolleyes: they find to do it automatically. it's easier and faster then social engineering type of attacks

as for UAC, it's a hell of a lot more than just that prompt that pops up. it does a lot in the background that you never see, which is why the security experts, the top in their field in the world, tell you to not disable it. just hide the prompts, but don't disable it completely

now for the article, that folder view fix via the registry was just what i needed. i was sick of my views being forgotten and changed but now they are finally all the same and i'm a happy camper with no complaints about vista :D

[Ambroos]

Oh Vista works faster, believe me. Get used to a little more typing/less clicking. For example some things I do a lot:

Launch Skype

Vista: (keyboard) hit startbutton, type skype, hit enter

XP: Hit startbutton, hover All programs, look through your three-columns list of programs, you found skype! great! hover over it and click skype, done.

Open a file

Vista: hit your personal folder (Ambroos for me, I've put it in the "favorites" of explorer), type something you remember from it in the upper right input thing (search), doubleclick your file

XP: try finding it in your maze of folders

I also still have XP on my pc. Just for crap things, like my Adobe CS3 master collection and World In Conflict (that runs smoother) but those things are probably just faster because that XP has nothing, not even messenger, and no AV etc..

I don't know, but I've been using both Vista and Office 2007 as main (OS/Office) ever since the first somewhat quality build (vista beta 2 and office from the very first dogfood leak) and when I'm at school now (XP/O2003) I feel terribly limited. It's such a huge difference!

And oh, hardware not supported is BS atm. Okay there are some things that don't have 100% drivers (my printer that's 7 years old doesnt have Vista x64 drivers (well not official, but the XP64 ones work and theres a simplified driver that does the job) but other things are just way smoother.

Just my 1184 symbols (excluding spaces)

[PL_ Veteran]

Thread cleaned

[bradavon]

I never got the advantage of Instant Search. Why would I want a search box so tiny? It displays no information at all expect the file name. When I've found a file using search the first thing I want to know is, what folder it's in? Good luck with Instant Search.

The window is way too small and doesn't even have column names and thus I always go back to the tried and tested full search window. As to typing programs names in, that's always struck me as illogical. By the time I've typed powerpoint I could've clicked on it from Quick Launch or navigated to it from All Programs and that's where I seem to differ from most users. My All Programs is fully categorised.

Except for a folder called Microsoft Office I have no folders created by setup.exe programs at all. I have a 7 subfolders in my Start Menu (including Startup and Accessories), that's it. This includes an Internet subfolder, a Media subfolder (inside that Audio, Video and Graphics) and so on.

It takes me seconds to find the program I want, why? Because I keep my Start Menu managed and know exactly where all my program shortcuts are. It's no wonder most users cannot find nothing on their start menu, it's just left to get messed up. Which incidentally Microsoft should do something with the Start Menu, unless you manage it (like I do), it quickly becomes an unusable mess.

I do agree that having to go back to XP is a bore though. I really miss Vista when at work.

p.s - Great article btw. I completely agree with your points on UAC. Many so called IT experts at work, just disable it, not having a clue what it really controls. I set mine to Silent Mode.

[ViperAFK]

I never got the advantage of Instant Search. Why would I want a search box so tiny? It displays no information at all expect the file name. When I've found a file using search the first thing I want to know is, what folder it's in? Good luck with Instant Search.

The window is way too small and doesn't even have column names and thus I always go back to the tried and tested full search window. As to typing programs names in, that's always struck me as illogical. By the time I've typed powerpoint I could've clicked on it from Quick Launch or navigated to it from All Programs and that's where I seem to differ from most users. My All Programs is fully categorised.

Except for a folder called Microsoft Office I have no folders created by setup.exe programs at all. I have a 7 subfolders in my Start Menu (including Startup and Accessories), that's it. This includes an Internet subfolder, a Media subfolder (inside that Audio, Video and Graphics) and so on.

It takes me seconds to find the program I want, why? Because I keep my Start Menu managed and know exactly where all my program shortcuts are. It's no wonder most users cannot find nothing on their start menu, it's just left to get messed up. Which incidentally Microsoft should do something with the Start Menu, unless you manage it (like I do), it quickly becomes an unusable mess.

I do agree that having to go back to XP is a bore though. I really miss Vista when at work.

p.s - Great article btw. I completely agree with your points on UAC. Many so called IT experts at work, just disable it, not having a clue what it really controls. I set mine to Silent Mode.

I set mine to silent mode too, it's retarded to turn it off when you can do that.

[bradavon]

I completely agree.

I can literally think of one program where I had to disable it for the program to work (a crack program), as soon as I'd run it I set it back to Silent Mode again. It's especially dumb when you can just tick "Run as Admin" (in the shortcut properties) for the odd program that doesn't work as a Standard User anyway. I've had to do that with 3 programs, which again isn't exactly a lot and 2 of those 3 now have new versions fixing what needed them to run as Admin.

In Silent Mode I know I am still being protected but I don't get the annoying prompts, which get very annoying very quickly.

It's dead simple to test if Silent Mode still protects you, is protected mode still on?, can you save files into Windows\System32 using Firefox or similar?

[mujjuman]

great article!

[DaDude]

The one and only way to resolve the Vista annoyances is to reformat. I used to hate Vista with a passion, but when I reformatted my computer a month ago, all my issues were resolved and they never returned. Now, I love Vista and will NEVER go back to XP ever again.