This is to continue the discussion from here.

First, before the Vista fanboys bash me: let it be known that I have used Vista fairly extensively. I played with two builds before the final was released and I ran that for several months before switching back to XP. I ran benchmarks, overclocked, jammed many games and tried every feature I could find. Also note that my "Mac fanboy" comments are all supported by facts, not fanboy-ish comments with no evidence.

Now, here are some questions I'd like answers to:

• What happened to the promised Fast Boot? WinFS? PC-to-PC sync? All the other cool shit from Longhorn?
• Why are there over 20 Vista features that gather info for the evil M$?
• Why is XP still smacking Vista around in terms of performance and benchies, even after SP3/SP1?
• Why is Vista less secure even with all the annoying security bullshit thrown in your face? Defender/WGA/UAC/DRM/etc.?
• Why is Vista still using the cursed registry?
• Why did they add more bloatware like IE7 to the mix?
• Why do a lot of 'Vista only' features now work on XP?
• Why is DX10 support still slow and useless?
• Why did they take Server 2003 code and expand that into Vista and then claim it a completely new product?
• Why is driver support STILL completely shit?
• Why is video overclocking STILL lacking? As well a proper SLI support?

Also, for the fanboys:

• WHY is Vista better? Can you actually provide valid reasons?
• Have you run benchmarks between Vista and XP yourself?
• Have you run games in DX9 and DX10 modes?
• Have you considered the implications of Vista beyond your usage environment?
• What are the benefits of running Vista over XP?

Ooh, and let's steal a bunch of ideas from OSX and then implement them as our own! Poorly! Where do you think they got Flip3D, Aero, the sidebar, Instant Search, widgets and various iLife equivalents from?

Five years of development and billions of dollars later and this is all we get? Bleh. The only good thing to come out of Vista is increased Leopard sales (which is a fact, btw.) True, there are some features which are uniquely Vista's, but does that justify the blind fanboy-ism? I think not.

Do I prefer OSX over XP? Sometimes. Do I prefer XP over Vista? Definitely. I'm certainly not telling everyone to go out and dump their PC for a Mac, but I'll certainly try to dissuade anyone from upgrading from XP to Vista for some time.

So, still think Vista is that great? Think about all of this before flaunting it as the next great OS and bashing me for liking Apple, please.

(See the attached comic for more Vista hilarity.)

Also add:

Why is IIS7 so much slower than 6? Technology is supposed to advance the user experience, not hamper it.

Why oh why do they punt Desktop Search so much? It is a real piece of shit and slows down your machine enormously.

Note:
It seems from all that i have heard/read that we will be sticking to XP/2003 for all our needs, no Vista/2008 for us. There has also been a company wide policy that Vista is NOT supported on our domain and users that illegally use it will receive warnings.

my vista experience is such :

Install, struggle with sound drivers, struggle with video drivers, can't correct resolution, download latest drivers, error, bypass that, still no resolution fix, roll back to previous driver, perfect, intall various apps, some with ease, then others that complain that it needs rights to install (even though I am logged in as administrator) can't get some apps to work, 3 days still no perfectly optimized os to my liking, uninstall vista, install xp, 4 hours later enjoy a perfect OS tweaked to my satisfaction.

amen

and thats just my own personal machine, I have had to support other people's vista problems up until I told 2 of my client's that I refuse to support vista until at least sp2.

I feel that the points raised here are valid and I have generally the same gripes with Vista.

The first thing I noticed when I booted into Vista for the first time is the small spinning circled next to the cursor - copied straight from OS-X.
I wondered how Microsoft could do and get away with, such a blatent and obvious theft/copy.

As has been mentioned, there are alot of OS-X features in Vista.

I guess Microsoft feels nothing about stealing from Mac, seeing as the origins of Windows was a theft of the source code to begin with (AFAIK/IIRC please correct me if I am wrong).

There are a few other major gripes that I have, like the way they've made troubleshooting LAN and W/LAN problems an absolute ball ache.
I don't want Vista to take over and "try" to fix the problem - I want to fix it myself! Dammit!

And using the quick search/ Search option thus far has been very frustrating. What was wrong with the Search function in XP?
This Vista one is a load of bollocks. In some cases, I've searched C$ of my work laptop with an XP machine and found the files/folders faster than with the Vista search running on the local machine.

On the point of IE7, mine hasn't worked since I booted for the first time, so I switched to Firefox and haven't looked back.
I also had a similar problem with my word laptop - installed Firefox - problem solved.

I really cannot understand how an "upgrade" can be so frikken useless?

Bearing in mind that my personal laptop is a Dell Lattitude D620 and my work one is a Dell Lattitude D630, the specs are similar but the work one has more RAM, a faster CPU and a larger H.D.D.

Why then, is my personal laptop (with only 1GB of RAM) able to outperform my work laptop (with 2GB)?

It doesn't make any kind of logical sense?!

When I first started using Vista I was happy with it once I got used to it. After working with it in a business environment, I am not recommending that our I.T. Dept roll-out Vista in our company. Infact, we've rather purchased about 2000 or so addiitonal XP Pro licenses for our expansion needs in the future.

You are correct, sir. Apple sued Microsoft for the theft of the whole 'windows' concept.

Oh, the irony.

Ahh, but that is the MS way. XP wasn't great for sometime. It needed a lot of work when it was released as well. The best thing, most stable thing that MS has ever developed must be AD. At least near the very top if not at the top.



That is odd. Maybe you running more background processes on the work laptop, than your personal one?

Well to be honest, im not using Vista, still XP (and if it wasnt for the fact that most of the factoring soft works on windows, i would have switched back to mac) and it works .. so why should i upgrade ?

Because it looks better ? how is that going to improve the use of my computer in business ?

A better looking OS doesn't mean more sales and my invoices aren't prettier neither ...

So why should i upgrade ...

There is an ancient old saying : if it ain't broken, don't try to fix it

Eh?

Windows licenses are backwards compatible iirc.

I added a short questionnaire for Vista fans to the original post.

Hopefully this will prevent unwarranted flaming.

True that, but I was trying to make a point to the snooty sales woman on the phone.

Unfortunately, it went over her head

lol, she still got teh commission

From here


You are shitting me right? 98 secure? bwahahahahaha

I still use Windows 3.1. You can't beat those QBasic games.

oh yes. Windows NT is the shizzness!!!

98 se was stable, thats it.

oh yeah and it was highly configurable, I usded to get my 98 se to boot in about 15 seconds, removed start up splash screens etc. It was all the rage back then to see who could boot their machines the quickest.

And changing peoples interface to old 3.1 style had me in stitches a couple of times. lol.

...perhaps something went over my head aswell

That was cos it crashed so often and Starcraft had a 60 second timeout limit

Almost two weeks and not one single comment from the Vista supporters? Interesting.

Just found this interesting graph from the security strategy director of MS themselves:



What you're seeing here is a graph representing the claim the Vista is more secure than XP, Linux and OSX.

What I'm seeing is:

a) Vista has only 50% of its errors fixed whereas others have 80% or more.
b) There's no mention of what these errors actually are.
c) Since Vista sales are so low there aren't many Vista-only exploits, thus it's less of a threat anyway.
d) This was written by a biased author and the numbers are clearly cut to suite the desired outcome.

Ridiculous. If they want Vista to hurry up and take over the market like XP did then they'd better stop this stupid wool-over-eye-pulling and fixing the other giant fuck-ups.

vista is old news, windows 7 is where it's at

Rust, it seems like you are looking for a fight...

I like Vista, but since I havent used it in about 6 months or more, I cant really comment. I think me still using XP says it all.

I will probably use it after SP1 and after better support.

It is available, just check the M$ downloads.

As far as I know the SP1 is just the RC version.

Thats how I have it as well.
Or I could just install it and let it auto-update.

Well if it turns into a fight, so be it: this is Colosseum after all. I just want to hear why the Vista fanboys keep plugging it so much yet have no answers to any of my points.

Perhaps I'm missing something but I'm still battling to understand why people love this POS.

I dont think there are many people that love it.
I like the improvements it has over XP, but then there are also stuff I dislike. For example I love the new Explorer address bar, and the way that you dont go the the top of the folder when you click "up", but instead the folder you were just in is highlighted.

I dislike the way that GOM Player doesnt become the default for the files I want it to, and I will have to manually do it most likely.
As with all OS' it has its pro's and con's. You decide whats most important to you.

So here's my answers:
Now, here are some questions I'd like answers to:

* What happened to the promised Fast Boot? WinFS? PC-to-PC sync? All the other cool shit from Longhorn?
- mm, dont really care. WinFS sounds nice, but so what if its not there?

* Why are there over 20 Vista features that gather info for the evil M$?
- Dont know about these. I have no inet at home, so good luck.

* Why is XP still smacking Vista around in terms of performance and benchies, even after SP3/SP1?
- XP is faster in benchies, Vista feels faster when using it. It truly does feel quite a bit snappier than XP. (if not for you, maybe because you are using the equivalent of a 386 on windows 95)

* Why is Vista less secure even with all the annoying security bullshit thrown in your face? Defender/WGA/UAC/DRM/etc.?
- I have no inet at home again.

* Why is Vista still using the cursed registry?
- I dont know. As far as I know its mostly for backwards compatability? I heard that it would not use it though.

* Why did they add more bloatware like IE7 to the mix?
-Bloatware? Its called features. Im sure you can disable what you dont want in some or other add/remove sections. I install FF anyway.

* Why do a lot of 'Vista only' features now work on XP?
- Like? The DX10 stuff?

* Why is DX10 support still slow and useless?
- True. Thats one of the reasons I still run XP

* Why did they take Server 2003 code and expand that into Vista and then claim it a completely new product?
- AFAIK a lot of stuff was rewritten. I dont think its purely 2003 code, the same way that 2000 wasnt windows 98 code.

* Why is driver support STILL completely shit?
- Ask the ppl who are supposed to write the drivers? nvidia, creative etc.

* Why is video overclocking STILL lacking? As well a proper SLI support?
- see above point.

Also, for the fanboys:

* WHY is Vista better? Can you actually provide valid reasons?
- personal preference?

* Have you run benchmarks between Vista and XP yourself?
- Only crysis DX10 vs DX9 in XP... Hence my gaming in XP

* Have you run games in DX9 and DX10 modes?
- Not the same game.

* Have you considered the implications of Vista beyond your usage environment?
- Yes, I have considered the implications of a client wanting to use it as a web server, or even to install software on it that we wrote back in '99. I decided that right about then would be a good time to quit and find a new job.
Web server, luckily that will never happen.
Installing the software we wrote in '99.... luckily not my problem, I'm not the bitch in the company anymore (the software uses smartcard certs, MS access DB and a bunch of other legacy stuff.... good luck with that one )

* What are the benefits of running Vista over XP?
- currently, the nice new user interface. The overall snappyness. Out of the box support for most new hardware. No need to install SP2 so that windows can actually see your 320GB harddrive.

Turn off recycling in IIS 7.

linkage

Oh dear.

Still awaiting some SP1 reviews and benchmarks but it looks like the Vista upgrade route is still not a smart option.

hahahhaha ahahahahaha



linkage

Been using Vista since it came out, never looked back. Everytime I sit at an XP box now, I throw up a little in my mouth.

The company I work for, might decide to not install Vista anymore, as it creates loads of sh!t on the network. XP is the way to go for now in my opinion, although be cautious loading SP3, as it can cause the same amounts as described above.

Vista is quite fast if the PC/laptop is not on a domain and if it has 2Gb RAM or more. I've found that as soon as Vista connects to a domain, it slows down considerably. Even Outlook slows down.

Microsoft, who do you want to SPAM today.

Adieu

actually I'm currently working with Vista business edition here at work...

I've only got 2gigs of RAM and it's such a pain trying to open up 2xVS2008 application, SQL server management and Itunes

I've requested for 4gigs hopefully it'll fix my problem

as for the look and feel I don't think I can go back to XP... vista is just too pretty

I had some trouble with VS2005 and Vista but it's seems to be fixed with VS2005 SP1...

I do however recommend you switch of superfetching and indexing and the likes as that would cause your system to kak out!

I recently upgraded my personal laptop by adding an additional 2GB of RAM.
She's booting and running alot faster now. Less system crashes, seems that 3GB's of RAM solved alot of Vista's issues for me.

Luckily it wasn't expensive to upgrade.

Hehe, I see they are releasing SP1 updates in bits and pieces now, maybe to help ease the 1GB download?

Or maybe they're roll-ups to "The Big One"?

Either way...

strange how I haven't received the SP1 in DVD yet... wonder if MSDN subscription will send it in along with XP SP3

I found something interesting but it might be a bit off topic.

I disabled the Search Indexing service on Vista and the machine just came alive. This was done in conjunction with -


On Outlook '03/'07 I disabled Offline use, Outlook runs much faster. The drawback on this is that you wont be able to access your mail offline.

Use it, dont use it.

Adieu

Great READ!

IT may be a bit long but it's definately worth it!


Guide to stop Disk Thrashing in VISTA

Very good reads there, thanks for sharing!

I disabled Superfetch, Drive Indexing, Defrag and Defender and I have to say the improvement is unbelievable!

Free'd up over 300MB's of system memory, booting up is faster, and the overall feel of Vista is now totally different.

Thanks guys!

I bought a laptop recently and asked to have XP installed on it. The shop told me all new laptops come with Vista now (no option). So be it, Vista it is. But for a laptop that comes standard with Vista I have a lot of conflict issues, and applications not working, not to mention a lot of my favourite games and programs just won't work.

I like the way Vista looks and feels, But I hate the way anything older than yesterday won't work.... grrrr....

New Kernal means older programs won't work... try find a update to the program that supports vista or look for an alternative