Poll: Is/was Vista really that bad?

[Matt2]

This is my first post on these forums in a very long time. What brings me back to ask this question is the upcoming release of Windows 7.

I have a few friends that are Mac junkies, but really have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to computers and are convinced they're "hackers" because they have jailbroken iPhones and modded xbox 360s. Haha. Their arguments for Mac are standard issue: "Vista is so slow!!", "Widgets copied gadgets!!", "Macs never crash"... etc.

The other day I heard them talking about how Vista is such a bad OS that Microsoft completely abandoned it and replacing it with a brand new OS. I had heard about Windows 7, but didnt really care or read anything about it and assumed it was just going to be a rebranded Vista with a new GUI and maybe a few kernal tweaks. I download RC1, install it and wow. It is even closer to Vista than I thought it would be, might as well call it Windows 6.5. The GUI looks almost exact, sounds are exact and the damn thing even feels the same in everyday tasks. Looking at some benchmarks made me laugh because in almost all of them Windows 7 was 1-2 seconds or 1-2 fps faster than Vista, yet the comments on websites and the attitudes of people I talk to offline make Windows 7 sounds like its going to be this badass OS that Vista never was.

I have run Vista Home Premium on two different computers, one an Opteron 170@2.8ghz, 2GB RAM, ATI 2900xt desktop and the other a laptop I recently got sporting a C2D 2.1ghz, 3gb RAM, 8400m GT. Never in my entire time using Vista have I ever thought it was crap. Is it spectacular? No. Did it have growing pains? Sure. Based on my experience using it, I attributed the hatred surrounding it to FUD - People trying to run it on 5 year old Dells and screaming performance hog, people dont want to pay, early driver issues and Apple's clever propaganda war against Vista. I admit that I dont do a lot of things some of you do on your PC and may not be aware of glaring issues, but IMO gaming was just as fast or faster than XP in most scenarios and desktop performance was pretty snappy.

I've always argued that Vista was a good OS and brought a new kernal to the table that opened up a ton of future possibilities for programmers that just were not possible on XP. Now that I am using Windows 7, I can honestly say that whether you hate Vista or not, whether Microsoft calls it "Windows 7" or "Windows 10 Pwn Edition", Vista is going to be with us for a long time.

 

[Nothinman]

No version of Windows is/was as bad as people make it out to be.

I have a few friends that are Mac junkies, but really have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to computers and are convinced they're "hackers" because they have jailbroken iPhones and modded xbox 360s. Haha. Their arguments for Mac are standard issue: "Vista is so slow!!", "Widgets copied gadgets!!", "Macs never crash"... etc.

All of the Mac people that I know also have Windows in Fusion or Parallels, go figure.

I've always argued that Vista was a good OS and brought a new kernal to the table that opened up a ton of future possibilities for programmers that just were not possible on XP.

Well the kernel in Vista and W7 is just a newer version of the one from XP, however there were lots of changes. And some of those changes will affect developers, but most of them focus on higher level things like what's presented in .Net and don't care about how the low level stuff implements it.

Now that I am using Windows 7, I can honestly say that whether you hate Vista or not, whether Microsoft calls it "Windows 7" or "Windows 10 Pwn Edition", Vista is going to be with us for a long time.

Windows is going to be with us for a long time, sadly, and neither Vista or W7 will change that. The core problems with Windows are users and crap drivers, neither of which MS can really do much about.

 

[Itchrelief]

Tell my well-worn paperclip how Macs don't crash (from way back in the OS 8 iMac days). Remember the bomb?

 

[Andres3605]

The only issue i had with vista was the type of systems that they certified as "vista ready", i had the chance of fixing in a Celeron D 2.8 / 1GB / 120GB / integrated video that was vista certified, with vista home premium and the experience was just painful .

 

[KeypoX]

I liked vista a lot. Thought it was the best OS to date. Until i used windows 7, I have been using 7 for some months now, since beta and really like it. Features like jump list i can no longer compute without. Unfortunately, I am currently forced to run vista on my laptop and its painful. I really can't believe the difference.

Also where did you see this benchmarks??? I did a search the other day and couldn't find vista vs 7. Xp crashed a lot back in the day. I have not had any bsods with 7, and not many with vista (well vista was rough around launch, but my hardware was pretty good).

Edit: I also enjoy some linux, wish I could only run linux actually, but i gotta have my games lol. I hope wine gets prefect one day lol. Even though wine is so bad ass already.

 

[lxskllr]

Vista is still my favorite O/S. My daughter's getting Win7, and I'm sticking with Vista.

 

[alcoholbob]

The new GUI is nice asside from that it feels the same. If anything W7 has more incompatibility problems than Vista ATM so you can't say 7 is better than Vista just yet.

 

[C1]

Worked this week to help a friend fix his HP dv6748us notebook (w/VISTA). What a mess VISTA was in. I was able to clean it up enough to make him happy (he actually believes that it was a repair/restoration). After working on that thing, Im so so very very happy that I diverted all my new notebooks to XP !!!!!

 

[CrimsonWolf]

Very happy with Vista. Used it on several computers over the last couple years.

Pretty much my only problems with it were caused by nVidia's craptacular drivers at release. Regular BSODs and reboots were a blast. Not really Microsoft's fault, though.

I never really got all the hate for it. It had issues at release but no worse than XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98....... did at first too. And they got hammered out pretty quick.

 

[Fox5]

Vista is very ram hungry, but that's about it. Oh, and it can hit the hard drive pretty heavy with all the indexing stuff it does.

But on a fast computer, (basically anything sold now), vista is pretty good.

 

[C1]

50 % of my friend's HP's issues admittedly were related to the crappy AV software being used as well as the massive bloat HP integrates in its OS software. (Besides being resident in RAM, the bloat eventually brought in all kinds of advertising & additional trash updates & dysfunctional services.) I recommended that my friend dump the HP software & just purchase & install a commercial VISTA or wait till WIN 7 can be bought off-the-self.

 

[mechBgon]

I attributed the hatred surrounding it to FUD - People trying to run it on 5 year old Dells and screaming performance hog, people dont want to pay, early driver issues and Apple's clever propaganda war against Vista.

Also, Vista marked the end of "Administrator by default" behavior on Windows, and a lot of people around here felt like their intelligence was being insulted by UAC prompts, or didn't welcome being forced to run stuff securely, even when UAC made it pretty easy. So there was a lot of complaint about that. However, I like the improved security of Vista over WinXP/2000 (or to put it another way, I like how much simpler it is to be a non-Admin user on Vista).

I understand what you're saying, though. Vista and 7 are fairly similar, yet Vista contines to draw criticism and hate for being not-WinXP, while 7 gets accolades and warm fuzzies for being not-Vista. .

 

[Piuc2020]

Everyone says Vista was a failure but I loved the system since its release, it's just superior to Windows XP in almost every way (except for low-end computers and compatibility for older stuff).

It still takes about 30 seconds to fully load a working firefox from boot as well as messenger and itunes on XP, with Vista, thanks to all the memory caching and optimization (superfetch and the like), it takes a split second to open firefox, even when freshly booted.

Vista might not be the best OS in town but it's definitely the best version of Windows available (until Win7 release, that is).

To be honest, Windows used to be really bad before they went NT, I remember when Mac OS had a snazzy graphical user interface and most PCs were still running DOS, those were times where using Mac OS really made you say "holy shit, this is awesome" and you never wanted to use DOS/Windows ever again. Nowadays, using OSX over Windows is more of a "oh that's nice" situation and you can immediately return to Windows without feeling you are using an obsolete system (like you felt using DOS/Win95 after trying Mac OS 7/8).

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: C1
50 % of my friend's HP's issues admittedly were related to the crappy AV software being used as well as the massive bloat HP integrates in its OS software. (Besides being resident in RAM, the bloat eventually brought in all kinds of advertising & additional trash updates & dysfunctional services.) I recommended that my friend dump the HP software & just purchase & install a commercial VISTA or wait till WIN 7 can be bought off-the-self.

That's typical of OEM bloat,happened to my brother I said why can't you get Vista stable its so simple,anyway took me 5 mins to figure the problem which was Lenovo password software on his laptop which caused problems with Vista and Firefox browser.

A lot of FUD and user/OEM bloat caused a lot of issues IMHO,I find Vista just as stable as Win7.
Be interesting to see what FUD appears with Win7 and Win8 down the road,I guess some people just hate Windows or are too lazy to troubleshoot so just point the problem at the OS with no real problem solving.


I have decided to keep two computers with Vista (being so stable and problem free) and upgrade my third one to Win7 x64 (mainly because of a full hardware upgrade due plus OEM version of Vista OS won't cover a motherboard upgrade).

 

[fleshconsumed]

Yes, it is that bad. Never had any stability problems with it, however, it's just annoying to use it every day. Mostly it's explorer issues though.

-Taskbar does not autohide for me, don't know why, I had to leave it to "always show"
-Explorer automatically closes if you are browsing CD/DVD and eject the disc (apparently you can turn this behavior off if you disable burning CD/DVD feature in Vista, why is it tied to burning CD/DVD I have on idea)
-No up button in explorer, yes, this is an issue
-Auto scroll in tree view pane is stupid, especially if you are using remote desktop and it's lagging
-Stupid explorer always tries to change my view preferences
-New search dialogue is stupid, tell me, how many people really use search by author textbox
-Search dialogue does not remember column settings I chose last time I used it
-For the longest time Save As dialogue didn't remember last saved location, although this seems to be fixed
-UAC, probably wouldn't be that bad, but why the hell does it have to ask TWICE for every action? I'm not going to change my mind.
-Shenanigans with copying files, I can't copy files from network straight to program files, but I can copy them to D drive, and then to Program Files, makes no sense
-Shenanigans with file access permissions and absolutely unhelpful messages. Was working with xml file I was editing in notepad2, tried to save, got "file does not exist" would you like to save as message. If the file does not exist, what am I editing right now? I pick save as, it points to the working directory with the file I'm editing right there, I click that file to save as, it says the file doesn't exist. Right...

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: C1
Worked this week to help a friend fix his HP dv6748us notebook (w/VISTA). What a mess VISTA was in. I was able to clean it up enough to make him happy (he actually believes that it was a repair/restoration). After working on that thing, Im so so very very happy that I diverted all my new notebooks to XP !!!!!

Are you talking about lots of stupid junk running in the background all the time?
The kind that makes the bottom right corner look like Las Vegas?
Because both XP and Vista users have a habit of doing that.

 

[zod96]

For me vista was the pits. And remember I said for "ME" I know others have different opinions. It was slow open or closing any program. In Xp you open a program and within a split second it opened. With vista it would sit their for about 2 second thinking. When you first booted up getting a working desktop took about 10 seconds more than Xp. Then their was unzipping things. In Xp it was done in a second. Vista again just sat their thinking about it. Emptying the trash can in vista again took forever where xp was done in a second. I wouldn't touch vista with a 10 foot pole. Windows 7 on the other hand is what vista should have been. Its quick responsive and very compatible with older and newer hardware unlike vista was. I am soo glad I skipped vista and waited for windows 7. Xp finally has a worthy replacement now

 

[Genx87]

People bitched about the dumbest things in Vista. Mainly the UAC. While before Vista came out they were the same ones bitching about XP being a security hazard.

I have used Vista since May of 07. Been a good OS for me. But I am on the RC of Win7 and probably wont look back.

 

[mc866]

I voted no, Vista was not bad

The only major issues I ever had with Vista were vendor related not OS related. Nvidia's drivers made sure I had a BSOD every day for some time until they were updated.

 

[Scotteq]

See the siggy...

I can understand non technical people having trouble with a OEM~bloatware~loaded economy box. You can't expect mom/dad/gramma to know how to clean that stuff off. They just want to get their eMail, do their taxes, and whatnot. And if they have a problem it's a bigger deal because they don't know how to even begin figuring it out. So they have to pay someone $50 an hour (or whatever) to fix it, only to find the so-called technician's solution is to wipe everything from the drive and reinstall. Gee... Thanks... Paid someone their hard~earned to *lose* their data. Not a knock - Just that troubleshooting PC's isn't something in their skillset.

Now, on a good day I might be considered to be a Power User. I know "regular" stuff well, a decent amount of the theory applicable to my usage, can assemble a PC, and when I run into a problem I don't know how to fix, I can usually at least figure out where to go to look for the information I need. I'm no PC~Deity, and I've had no troubles with Vista I couldn't easily solve.

I post this because I have to say the part that has always mystified me are the people purporting to be 'Highly Technical' who can't perform the simplest tasks - like identifying what is causing svchost to consume stupid amounts of RAM, who is actually responsible for providing a functional driver, or who is responsible for supporting a given application, or even how to shut UAC off so they don't get the messages they spend so much time whining about. And these are the same peeps who (appear to) scream the loudest about how 'terrible' the OS is!?!?

I can understand "don't like it". I can understand "XP does everything I need, so why change". But I'm sorry guys: If you can't get Vista working properly, then IMHO, you need to turn your technical credentials in at the door on your way out. It's not hard. "Different? Yes. But not hard.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Scotteq
See the siggy...

I can understand non technical people having trouble with a OEM~bloatware~loaded economy box. You can't expect mom/dad/gramma to know how to clean that stuff off. They just want to get their eMail, do their taxes, and whatnot. And if they have a problem it's a bigger deal because they don't know how to even begin figuring it out. So they have to pay someone $50 an hour (or whatever) to fix it, only to find the so-called technician's solution is to wipe everything from the drive and reinstall. Gee... Thanks... Paid someone their hard~earned to *lose* their data. Not a knock - Just that troubleshooting PC's isn't something in their skillset.

Now, on a good day I might be considered to be a Power User. I know "regular" stuff well, a decent amount of the theory applicable to my usage, can assemble a PC, and when I run into a problem I don't know how to fix, I can usually at least figure out where to go to look for the information I need. I'm no PC~Deity, and I've had no troubles with Vista I couldn't easily solve.

I post this because I have to say the part that has always mystified me are the people purporting to be 'Highly Technical' who can't perform the simplest tasks - like identifying what is causing svchost to consume stupid amounts of RAM, who is actually responsible for providing a functional driver, or who is responsible for supporting a given application, or even how to shut UAC off so they don't get the messages they spend so much time whining about. And these are the same peeps who (appear to) scream the loudest about how 'terrible' the OS is!?!?

I can understand "don't like it". I can understand "XP does everything I need, so why change". But I'm sorry guys: If you can't get Vista working properly, then IMHO, you need to turn your technical credentials in at the door on your way out. It's not hard. "Different? Yes. But not hard.

Agreed!.. I have used every Windows OS and to be honest none were hard to get running fast and stable,Win7 beta actually gave me the most issues during installation of any OS I have used during installation, but I managed to get it to except most of my drivers eventually ,again I don't blame Win7 beta because it was beta back then and you use a beta OS at your own risk,I'll be happy once HP has printer drivers for Win7(too bad Vista drivers I have don't work in Win7 ).

 

[iCyborg]

I don't think it's anywhere bad as many people make it. Like "resource hog" - in 2003 512 MB of RAM had the same price as 4GB today, so what if Vista uses 50% more RAM at start... Though I moved to Vista with a new PC, and SP1 was already out, so I didn't have early issues or problems with old hardware.
In fact, Vista is good enough that I didn't plan to upgrade to Win 7 any time soon, however a moment of weakness and that special preorder price changed my plans.

 

[xj0hnx]

I like Vista, but Win 7 feels as light as XP, with the good things from Vista, so I'll be moving to it once it's out. Once UAC is turned off, and a couple tweaks applied like Take Ownership added to right click, Vista is as good an OS as I have seen. My only complaints are the Winsxs folder, and the problem I am having shrinking my C:/ drive, other than that it's great.

 

[BlueWeasel]

I didn't jump to Vista until June of last year, after the release of SP1 and thanks in part to last year's Technet deal. Been using it ever since and really liking it. Granted, I did tweak some things and UAC gets annoying sometimes. I accepted the FUD as truth as being my reason for not upgrading sooner.

 

[Binky]

Your poll doesn't work, since there are two questions (with two very different answers).

Vista WAS a total POS when it came out. Drivers weren't even close to ready.

Vista IS a very stable OS now. I still think it's clunky, but it runs very well on 3 systems in my house.