Why Windows Vista Sucks:
I've endured using Vista's Beta versions for over half a year now, so I am fully qualified to make the declaration that in truth, it sucks. Hard.
Let's start with bloat, and boy, is there bloat. I have two gigs of RAM, and Vista has no problem wasting over half that just sitting at the desktop! Oh, sure, it scales back and uses very little if I use a program that actually needs RAM for itself, but that's not good enough. I paid for 2 GB of RAM, and dang it, I want there to be 2 GB of RAM sitting there. Preloading applications so they open faster, no thanks Micro$oft, maybe on older laptops that's needed but not my desktop's blazing fast 7200rpm hard drive..
And don't even get me started on "Aero Glass", putting my GPU to work, what a waste. Just like my RAM, if I'm not playing a game, I want my video card to just sit there and do nothing. In the old 2D interface, aka "the good one", I move windows around and my CPU usage goes up; that's the American way, always has been. This new-found voodoo nonsense is not welcome; just like XP, everyone who is cool will switch back to "classic", like Coke. After all, nothing screams technical expertise quite like changing your Windows theme, especially to something from 1995. (Some of these darn kids weren't even born then...)
Let's proceed on to networking: at first I didn't think it had changed much, then I ran into some server troubles. Vista auto-diagnosed the various problems as they arose, and for awhile I was the only one in the building with Internet access. Totally unfair! Back in my day we had to work our butts off just to connect to the network, and now youngsters will never appreciate! Micro$oft can take their revamped IPv4 stack and shove it. And all this new IPv6 stuff? One word: Communism.
The sound stack is equally disappointing. As a long time Windows fan, I was excited about what new adventures I would have wrangling my onboard audio and sound card to be used simultaneously. I admit, thinking about how fun it would be to relearn all the hoops to jump through and tricks needed to actively remap inputs to outputs in Vista kept me up at night, I was so giddy. And yet, look where we are. All I have to do is check little boxes, and everything automatically installed. It's like going to see a movie, except there is no show, just credits. I thought at the very least I'd have fun constantly reinstalling Creative's drivers, but even they are shockingly decent. Talk about BORING.
And should we even go to video drivers? Early ATI drivers gave me lots of occasional corruption and video memory errors on my X1800XT, but then after a few updates the fun ended. The installation has been reduced to a pathetic and simple one-click installer. Video drivers aren't supposed to be simple, they are supposed to be manly, like oil changes!
This brings me to perhaps the biggest reason why Vista sucks: DirectX 10. That's right, Micro$oft is FORCING you to upgrade to Vista to play DirectX 10 games, for no reason besides to promote Vista. Some Micro$oft claims DX10 solves the small triangle batch problem, and other similar stuff to reduce overhead. That's all lies, they have improved nothing. The fact is that DX10 is 30% slower than DX9, the INQ said so. There is obviously no reason why DX10 could not run on XP. Oh sure, they claim they can't do it on XP because it's based on a new driver model that treats GPUs as multitask-able processors from the ground up. Who are they kidding, that would take like five seconds to change in XP from the single application model they have now. Like, you could clap your hands twice and it would do it, three times tops... It's not like video drivers are THAT much bigger than Windows NT...
And finally, the number one reason why you shouldn't buy into Windows Vista: Digital Rights Management. Seriously, like, none of my songs or movies or games will play. Well, no wait... What I mean to say is that future DRM-filled media won't work in certain situations. Someone tried to point out to me that the only content that would be restricted on Vista to any degree wouldn't play AT ALL on XP or other operating systems, since no DRM means the content providers take their toys to another sandbox. THAT"S PURE B.S. AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT! Micro$oft is the one who is putting DRM on everything, not content providers. Why can't Micro$oft stop screwing customers and let the content providers give us DRM-free media like they want to so badly?
Look at digital cable: to use a CableCard, you have to have a special OEM-built PC with Vista! That's crap, I'll take my unrestricted CableCard use on XP any day. And I don't want Vista lowering the resolutions of movies that come out in 2008 with my current video cards, no thanks, I'll just keep XP where I can watch them fully unrestricted! When the DRM junk sees that I am running the vastly superior and unsecured XP, it will just give up and let me view the content at full resolution while I laugh at the dopes who bought vista.
I hope I inspired everyone to keep up the fully justified and totally rational "trolling" against Micro$oft's new OS. Yeah, they call it trolling, but the rest of us call it the TRUTH. The fact is, Micro$oft is out to get us, squeeze every penny from our pockets. I had to pay $90 for a full copy of XP a few years ago, and my butt was sore for weeks. What's next Micro$oft, charging $130 for a service pack upgrades? Wouldn't surprise me one bit...
I've endured using Vista's Beta versions for over half a year now, so I am fully qualified to make the declaration that in truth, it sucks. Hard.
Let's start with bloat, and boy, is there bloat. I have two gigs of RAM, and Vista has no problem wasting over half that just sitting at the desktop! Oh, sure, it scales back and uses very little if I use a program that actually needs RAM for itself, but that's not good enough. I paid for 2 GB of RAM, and dang it, I want there to be 2 GB of RAM sitting there. Preloading applications so they open faster, no thanks Micro$oft, maybe on older laptops that's needed but not my desktop's blazing fast 7200rpm hard drive..
And don't even get me started on "Aero Glass", putting my GPU to work, what a waste. Just like my RAM, if I'm not playing a game, I want my video card to just sit there and do nothing. In the old 2D interface, aka "the good one", I move windows around and my CPU usage goes up; that's the American way, always has been. This new-found voodoo nonsense is not welcome; just like XP, everyone who is cool will switch back to "classic", like Coke. After all, nothing screams technical expertise quite like changing your Windows theme, especially to something from 1995. (Some of these darn kids weren't even born then...)
Let's proceed on to networking: at first I didn't think it had changed much, then I ran into some server troubles. Vista auto-diagnosed the various problems as they arose, and for awhile I was the only one in the building with Internet access. Totally unfair! Back in my day we had to work our butts off just to connect to the network, and now youngsters will never appreciate! Micro$oft can take their revamped IPv4 stack and shove it. And all this new IPv6 stuff? One word: Communism.
The sound stack is equally disappointing. As a long time Windows fan, I was excited about what new adventures I would have wrangling my onboard audio and sound card to be used simultaneously. I admit, thinking about how fun it would be to relearn all the hoops to jump through and tricks needed to actively remap inputs to outputs in Vista kept me up at night, I was so giddy. And yet, look where we are. All I have to do is check little boxes, and everything automatically installed. It's like going to see a movie, except there is no show, just credits. I thought at the very least I'd have fun constantly reinstalling Creative's drivers, but even they are shockingly decent. Talk about BORING.
And should we even go to video drivers? Early ATI drivers gave me lots of occasional corruption and video memory errors on my X1800XT, but then after a few updates the fun ended. The installation has been reduced to a pathetic and simple one-click installer. Video drivers aren't supposed to be simple, they are supposed to be manly, like oil changes!
This brings me to perhaps the biggest reason why Vista sucks: DirectX 10. That's right, Micro$oft is FORCING you to upgrade to Vista to play DirectX 10 games, for no reason besides to promote Vista. Some Micro$oft claims DX10 solves the small triangle batch problem, and other similar stuff to reduce overhead. That's all lies, they have improved nothing. The fact is that DX10 is 30% slower than DX9, the INQ said so. There is obviously no reason why DX10 could not run on XP. Oh sure, they claim they can't do it on XP because it's based on a new driver model that treats GPUs as multitask-able processors from the ground up. Who are they kidding, that would take like five seconds to change in XP from the single application model they have now. Like, you could clap your hands twice and it would do it, three times tops... It's not like video drivers are THAT much bigger than Windows NT...
And finally, the number one reason why you shouldn't buy into Windows Vista: Digital Rights Management. Seriously, like, none of my songs or movies or games will play. Well, no wait... What I mean to say is that future DRM-filled media won't work in certain situations. Someone tried to point out to me that the only content that would be restricted on Vista to any degree wouldn't play AT ALL on XP or other operating systems, since no DRM means the content providers take their toys to another sandbox. THAT"S PURE B.S. AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT! Micro$oft is the one who is putting DRM on everything, not content providers. Why can't Micro$oft stop screwing customers and let the content providers give us DRM-free media like they want to so badly?
Look at digital cable: to use a CableCard, you have to have a special OEM-built PC with Vista! That's crap, I'll take my unrestricted CableCard use on XP any day. And I don't want Vista lowering the resolutions of movies that come out in 2008 with my current video cards, no thanks, I'll just keep XP where I can watch them fully unrestricted! When the DRM junk sees that I am running the vastly superior and unsecured XP, it will just give up and let me view the content at full resolution while I laugh at the dopes who bought vista.
I hope I inspired everyone to keep up the fully justified and totally rational "trolling" against Micro$oft's new OS. Yeah, they call it trolling, but the rest of us call it the TRUTH. The fact is, Micro$oft is out to get us, squeeze every penny from our pockets. I had to pay $90 for a full copy of XP a few years ago, and my butt was sore for weeks. What's next Micro$oft, charging $130 for a service pack upgrades? Wouldn't surprise me one bit...