Problems with Vista
To be honest, I'm not using Windows Vista yet. I just bought a PC last week, and was offered the opportunity to get Vista with it, or XP and decided to stick with XP. It's probably because of what I've been hearing from friends and reading on the web!
In the few times I've tested or used Vista, I've noticed it's rather slow and somewhat over-featured!
In any case, here's a rundown of the most common complaints about Windows Vista, and check them out to see if you've ever run into any of them:
Vista is slow, even on a brand new desktop or notebook, even when no applications are running. Opening an application takes time, and once inside an app there's a chance fast-typists, like us journalists, will suffer a delay in characters appearing on screen!
Some users say Vista works fine if you've got 2GB RAM. What, that's massive!
Operating systems should be light, running in the background and should not be a cause for holding up a user session with multiple applications.
Another common user complaint is that Vista applies new short-cuts and routes to doing things which end up feeling like 'long-cuts' because Windows users have been dealing with Microsoft's operating systems for 15 years and they don't like too many changes.
The main problem is that there are other useable options out there, and not just Windows XP.
Have you ever heard of Ubuntu? It's an open-source operating system that can run all your applications and is getting excellent reviews all round.
Right from the start, the installation is slick, the desktop is fast and responsive, and it copes well without running on a top specification machine.
Thanks to non-Microsoft products, like OpenOffice (replacing Microsoft Office), Thunderbird (replacing Outlook) and Google Apps (soon replacing everything), Ubuntu comes to life!
There's also Apple's Leopard OS, which just hit 2 million users this week, but that's for Macintosh users.
Back to PC systems, Vista is doing fairly well in spite of the slow take-up by users. Almost every PC in the Western world is being sold with a copy of Vista, other regions are not far behind and obviously there are millions of downloads of the system from Microsoft's website. But, such is the sheer dominance of Microsoft, that many million more users are needed for Vista to make an impact, and to be considered to be replacing XP.
Just imagine that Microsoft continues to support XP fully, ten months after the release of Vista, and from the looks of it will continue to do so until 2010, at least.
So, where does that leave us?
If you're a typical non-technical user who is about to buy a PC, get Vista and run it on a PC with big RAM and harddisk space, and don't push it too hard!
If you're still using an old PC, stick to XP as long as you can.
If you're a techno-type, install Ubuntu and discover the wonders of Linux and open-source.
Oh, and if you're still using Windows 98, please tell Microsoft because they're pretending that you don't exist anymore!
zanasser@gmail.com
posted by Zeid Nasser @ 6:40:00 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Frankly Zeid,
This is not one of your best articles.
You need to get some facts straight
First, Vista is doing WAY BETTER than XP did in the first 10 months of it's release. They have overshot their expectations by 1 BILLION dollars!
As for Microsoft's support for XP, I think that's a great thing. I will continue to run XP as long as my PC can handle it. And I feel good that Microsoft is supporting it. Unlike many other OSes that you either have to upgrade or die
Now regarding OSes having a small foot print. That argument has been around for ages. And no one managed to win it!
But I do agree with you that Vista is kind of slow, and I'm waiting for SP1 to see the millions of fixes that go in it and see if that will help the performance
A negative about Vista (x86) version is the software limitation of 3GB of RAM. If you want more, you MUST move to x64! Which many people are reluctant to do. (I frankly find that as a negative)
The price of a 1GB Dimm these days is around $25 which means $50 for 2 GB is not that bad. (Compared to 399 for vista alone)
By the way, you have been picked as one of the " Unsung heros of blogging"
Get a mac :) w rayye7 rasak!
http://www.patricksemaan.com/projektcyan/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/osx_vs_vista_upgrades.jpg
Come on, this was all you could say about Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard?
"There's also Apple's Leopard OS, which just hit 2 million users this week, but that's for Macintosh users."
So what's different about it compared to Vista? Why should someone consider getting a Mac? And it's 2 million customers, not necessarily users... and that's 2 million in how long time? When was it released?
Have run Vista for a couple of weeks when it came out. Was not too impressed.
Decided to wait til March-2008 to buy a new PC with Vista Ultimate, and a top of the line DirectX-10 video card (possibly dual cards), 2TB of disk space, and as much RAM as physically possible.
So for now, my only problem with Vista is that all my relatives who relay on me for free support keep calling and asking for help, and I can't help them. On second thought, maybe that's not a problem muhahahaha
You did the best thing. I ran VISTA ULTIMATE for 6 months and decided its time to "down grade" (I considered it upgrade actually!!) to XP.
Restart time was recuded from 2minutes to 30seconds max. Response is soo fast that I started to wonder why MS decided to release vista so soon!!!
Vista was slow, very very slow. I faced the blue screen of death like 100 times. It was a horrible experience actually!!!
my specs? oh yeah, Core 2 Duo 7200 2.0Ghz 4MB L2, 2GB 667RAM, and 256MB dedicated 7600 nvidia.
Even SP1 has many problems as I heard and read online. I will probably wait 1 year after SP1 before I move on to vista.
OFCOURSE, I am buying an apple very very soon enshallah. LEOPARD is the best. I agree with moey that no words can describe how good that is. INCREDIBLE.
Unfortunately my old Dell mother board broke down and I was forced to buy a new computer. As a life long MS user, I choose to buy a stronger computer than what I thought I needed based on my knowledge of XP as my needs are simple. When I looked at Vista, I really loved the Aero look and it didn't take me long at all to get comfortable in using it. I was fortunate in buying it from Costco, I because they offer free tech support forever as long as you own the computer , I received all the support I needed to answer all my questions. Costco techs also have access to Microsoft and HP manfacturers that would not supporting me with my questions.
Still, I found myself spending a lot of time working around issues like Explorer suddently shutting down, or become stronger with the registry to enable Firefox to become my primary browser. I then quickly discovered HP advisor that was created to try to keep Vista Stable inadvertidently directed me to a web site that told me I needed to down load an update from a particular location where I got a Virus. I was then advised to blow away the advisor. I have been forced to re-install the software three times and sorry to say, I have because pretty strong on the techical side.
I also found simple things I took for granted like moving from website to website took noticeably longer than on my previous Windows 2000, despite the stronger hardware-that's when I went to firefox.
I would like to go on record as saying despite spending more time trouble shooting the software than actually using it, I still enjoyed the OS layout and appearance and most of what I saw in it.
My main turn offs is the fact it appears with the removal of HAL and centralization of it's Media Center, MS has also changed the way Graphic and Sound cards need to be made or packaged. For this the manufacturers need more software development and this effort still being worked on.
To me, it's just another hook MS does to force Hardware people to customize their product to the software and force other OS to completely theirs and expend additional resources in hopes of obsoluting them or making it so they cannot catch up (slowing them down).
The bottom line for me is, XP & 2000 are still the best OS I've seen, but Vista clearly looks the best with its Aero. But in terms of compatibiity with hardware, MACs appear to have in edge in requiring less effort, looking cleaner and simplier, having smaller foot prints and being much faster. Because I'm new to the MAC environment, I cannot at this time venture an opinion on what OS is better. My, friends have convined me that Apple runs Vista & XP than any of the systems box makers put together using Vista r XP. The major drawback in using a MAC is it has less software than XP that run on it, but about the same as Vista currently on it's 32 bit applications. For Apple, Leopard is already a 64 Bit OS. Because of its speed and hardware compatibility, more gamers are also looking into buying a MAC and using it for gaming with Vista 64 bit applications or XP.
For me, as a simple person, I was fortunate enough to be in a position to purchase a going out model of a Mac Pro for $1500 that was a 2.2 GHz. That is about the same price as what would be a regular Laptop with simular hardware and Film editing and photo software. I think I will load XP on it also and make it look and run like Vista. There are some really remarkable instructions on how to do this out there. I also like the Matte screen over the glossy type screens that make the darker colors look better, but also seem to have problems with reflections.
This is not to say I think Vista is a flop or will never be great and is a joke, but right now for the price think a Mac OS has an edge. I see that remaining until Vista issues are finally resolved and technology catches up. The problem I see MS is up against is the fact box makers have additional software installed to monitor how it runs and kep it stable is a very serious issue. The fact manufactures simply are refusing to spend the money to develop drivers for Vista because of the was MS rolled it out is a big deal. Scanning is a big deal. MS will get around this, but this will not get resolved soon. I don't know when this act will come together. Or if it will before Vienna comes out. I know that is being pushed with great vigor
I have returned two Vista loaded computers and each time I picked up a new computer of looked at one, it appears the box makers or someone is working on changing the interfaces a bit and also resolving some of the nagging problems by adjusting the settings when the PCs or laptops come out. In my view, this ay because the simple volume of laptops being returned is requiring the Box makers or MS to insist on doing everything possible to resolve what they can on their own- I infortunately need a computer now and it needs to work now. I not longer have time time to support MS development.
In April Ubuntu Linux will get release its next version and in that, a lot of drivers and compatibility issues will be resolved and bring it too closer to being a viable full fludged OS. The developers are now working to improve the quality of the OS and interoperability of all its parts.
Unfortunately, my problem with Linux is just trying to understand what it's upgrades do. That techno speak is greek to me. I would like someone to simply say when you run it, the errors message are now mostly gone and you need to know minimal shell language. I have seen Ubuntu and frankly it really looks very nice. But with the Drivers issues about to be resoved and speed not an issue, great security, I think if they could get MS Office suite running using crossover, and or stronger communications software (user friendly), you would probably see a lot more downloads from students and professionals.
Is my decision a good one, will Leopard have me chasing my tail? All I can say is, until my mother board went out and I got Vista, I didn't think I would ever try a MAC OS-Only for fun. I'm sure I will find out all the issues with Leopard. Right now as I see it MS has the best office suite around with open office right on their tails. I'm sure Leopard will not be the only system I will try with my MAC. I don't dislike or hate MS, and hope they succeed in rolling out a better quality version Vista and the drivers and software applications come. If they do, they haven't lost me. Unfortunately, this time around, because of their problems and trying to help Intel, they have really hurt the PC box makers like Dell,HP etc. and the longer I stay will a MAC, the more likely I will remain and want to use applications associated with their OS.
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