So Just How Bad Does Vista Suck?

[Conan71]

Okay, I've finally got to replace my laptop, it's worn out.  I think I might have waited a bit long as just about everything I've seen on line is loaded with Vista and I've been told it's a total sh!t-hook for an operating system.

How bad is it?

[custosnox]

This actually depends on what you plan on doing with it.  For general purposes, I actually like it.  Getting used to it is the biggest problems.  Now that the SP1 has been released, and a lot of the bugs have been fixed.  The biggest problems that people are having with it are mostly associated around these changes that they are not used to.  Beyond this, the new security measures cause a few pains, primarily to those who like to pirate things, and the new setup for drivers can cause problems with running older hardware.  Beyond this, I would say I have had a really positive experience.  I also love the parental controls available with vista.  Next best thing to having key logger.

[Townsend]

Apparently bad enough for Microsoft to extend support for XP for 5 more years.

http://www.news.com/2100-1016_3-6152952.html


"Under Microsoft's Support Lifecyle Policy, consumers and businesses both receive "mainstream" support for their products. XP Home Edition and XP Media Center will see mainstream support end in April 2009, which includes paid support, security updates, design changes and feature requests.

Once mainstream support expires, the five-year extended support is due to kick in. Previously, XP Home and XP Media Center consumers would migrate to self-help support for eight years, after their mainstream support ended."


Sorry, a small edit.  I've got friends that are just fine with Vista.  I wouldn't be skeered.

[custosnox]

Here are a couple of links for some tricks.

http://vista4beginners.com/tips-and-tricks
http://vistahowto.blogspot.com/

[Conan71]

I finally found the old thread on this and looks like a simple enough fix to put XP on a machine.

I'm not much of a geek.  I buy a computer and use it till it wears out.  I had thought about a MacBook Pro as the Mac OS kicks donkey.  But I'm not paying for it so not my choice.

[custosnox]

quote:Originally posted by Townsend

Apparently bad enough for Microsoft to extend support for XP for 5 more years.

http://www.news.com/2100-1016_3-6152952.html


"Under Microsoft's Support Lifecyle Policy, consumers and businesses both receive "mainstream" support for their products. XP Home Edition and XP Media Center will see mainstream support end in April 2009, which includes paid support, security updates, design changes and feature requests.

Once mainstream support expires, the five-year extended support is due to kick in. Previously, XP Home and XP Media Center consumers would migrate to self-help support for eight years, after their mainstream support ended."


Sorry, a small edit.  I've got friends that are just fine with Vista.  I wouldn't be skeered.

My bet on this would be for an expected slow phase out of XP.  There are still a lot of hard core XP'rs out there, much like there were on 98 (I refused to switch over to XP up until last year).  Now there is a lot of bad publicity on Vista because of the hard cores that is unwarranted.  MS may be anticipating a longer changeover due to this.  But, this is my personal opinion.

[Conan71]

I have found some of that myself.  My next door neighbor is a geek and he hates anything which comes out of Microsoft, especially anything new, for no other reason than it's "Big Brother".

[mrhaskellok]

No problems here, I actually prefer it because it seems to solve problems better than XP.  It also appears to be more stable, never had a crash yet.


Good luck.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

I have found some of that myself.  My next door neighbor is a geek and he hates anything which comes out of Microsoft, especially anything new, for no other reason than it's "Big Brother".

that pretty much sums up 95% of the arguments against Vista.

[TheArtist]

Good topic. I have an old Dell computer thats about 5 years or so old now, perhaps 6. It seems to really slow down when I do major image stuff with photoshop. Plus I am tired of sitting in one spot with this desktop. Just yesterday at the TN meeting I asked the geek squad there what I should get. They said the Mac Book Pro. Just looked up the pice... geez thats a fancy price, about 2,800. May have to wait till I finish my casino mural project late summer. But I do hear that for people that do lots of visual arts stuff that Mac is a good system, and I need a lot of speed. But gosh thats a pretty penny for a laptop. Plus I want to upgrade from my little 26" flat screen to a 42" over the fireplace lol. And if I got that then I would of course want a Blue Ray player and a decent sound system... All together your starting to get around the 6,000$ plus mark.  Descisions, descisions. Danged consumer society always coming up with new toys, I mean, necessities.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

I have found some of that myself.  My next door neighbor is a geek and he hates anything which comes out of Microsoft, especially anything new, for no other reason than it's "Big Brother".

that pretty much sums up 95% of the arguments against Vista.

So are you saying you like it or are you an anti MS guy.

[sgrizzle]

I'm sure inteller is a MS fanboy who will buy everything they make...

I like microsoft, without them a lot of IT people would be without a job. Vista's main problems were that it was rushed to market without some of the intended features like winfs. It also needed a lot more testing, especially on the graphic card side.  Problems with ATI and NVidia drivers account for a vast majority of the crashes. It also requires significantly more horsepower than XP so it's generally something to get with a new PC and not installing on the PC you bought 2 years ago.

[inteller]

that's funny, my 8600GT has never crashed...sounds more like a PEBCAK error.

when XP came out people said "oh this is crap, i'm sticking to 2000"

when Windows 7 comes out people will say "oh this is crap I'm sticking to Vista"

the perception of Vista being slower than XP is is just that.  If I ran Windows 98 on a PC that came with XP it would make XP look slow too.

so you can choose to stick with a circa 2001 OS that has had to have loads of **** patched onto it to make it secure and stable, or you can get a modern OS.

[bugo]

Vista is horrible.  It actually makes Windows ME (remember that pile of crap?) look like a masterpiece.

[godboko71]

quote:Originally posted by bugo

Vista is horrible.  It actually makes Windows ME (remember that pile of crap?) look like a masterpiece.

Hmm did you ever use ME for an extended period of time? I would guess not.

The biggest problem with vista is drivers for older hardware, most ner stuff (released in the last 6-12 months) your pretty save. Key word there is released not manufactured, since ATI and Nvida take forever to phase out older modules.

Also cant blame it all on Microsoft, the hardware vender's arn't writing drivers for there older hardware so people have to upgrade, not much Microsoft can do about that.

Some things to look out for when buying a laptop if it doesn't have 2 gigs of ram pop onto http://www.newegg.com and order ram to upgrade your system, if you need help let me know, no since paying Geekwhatever 90+ an hour for a simple memory upgrade. Also try to get one with nvida or ATI graphics instead of Intel's solutions.

Either way good luck.

PS: On laptops Vista's power management systems kicks XP's butt, so that along made me decide to keep Vista. That and Photoshop to me runs better on Vista. (Yeah I know the photoshop was another user but still a valid point.)

PSS: Its hard to justify the cost of a mac for "graphics work" now that both OS's run on the same hardware. One thing most graphic artistes don't tell you is even on the makes they add extra ram and higher RPM harddrives when possible to make the experience better.