Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Silent Vista-loving majority?
i thought the same thing
by mtbdude666 - 6/2/08 5:49 PM In reply to: LOVE is a bit strong, but... by cyndymccI was scouring the articles on how to replace with XP, but the dang thing kept working good. The new bells and whistles are kinda' cool too.
Vista BE x32 and x64
by Robert Kuhn - 6/19/08 10:57 AM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarI am the IT Manager for my company and so one of the many things I need to do is try and stay current with the latest trends (and did I mention that my department is a department of two? Me and my IT Support Tech?) so this is a challenge. VMWare and having one or two machines for testing helps.
Our company also develops software and hardware and we are a MSDN subscriber.
So I've been using Vista BE since the beta days; and as my primary OS. As newer beta relases came out the product got "better" (better than the last...) until eventually the launch of the OS where, of course, I installed it on my machine.
For the first few months I was running the 32-Bit version and it did take some hardware makers to produce a driver (or support) for Vista but these were typically older hardware such as a Lexmark printer/scanner that I had at home. No big deal if they never did make a driver for it because it wasn't used that often and the print quality on it wasn't all that great to start with.
Once I was confident that the 32-bit version of Vista BE was running 99% of my applications just fine (the 1% were older legacy apps for which I either run in a VMWare session, on an XP machine or I just don't use it anymore) I backed up my data and installed the 64-Bit version; I've been running the 64-Bit version for about 3 months now.
All that said... my experience with Vista have been a positive one. It does some things much better than XP and there are other things I just question - the "Add/Remove Programs" was renamed to "Programs and Features", I really don't understand the need to rename this; not a big deal.
I'm not saying that I totally love Vista but for the most part I can't see going back to XP. And if I did it wouldn't be the end of the world.
People who recall when Windows and Windows for WorkGroups was around, the move to Windows NT v3.51 was almost as dramatic even though it looked the same but when Windows 9x and NT 4.0 came out people making the move from Windows/Windows for WorkGroups were not thrilled.
The transition from Window 9x/NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 was an easier one becuase it was pretty much seamless and then when XP came out same thing.
Vista, on the other hand, wasn't as seamless. So I think the expectation where people felt they could just "jump right in" were sadly mistaken. Part of it does act and drive like XP but there is much more too it that is no XP like.
To be completely honest, I think people are just plain lazy to take the time to learn how to use it. I'm not claiming to be a complete expert on Vista but the more I use it the more I learn. This is not to say that I love it but I also don't hate it.
I also have to say that Vista has been reliable. It has not crashed, some apps crash but these also crashed when I was on XP. Once it actually Blue Screened on me but that was resolved with a driver update from the vendor.
Is Vista a hardware hog? Yes it is. It's a pig of an OS. But... when Widnows 9x, NT 4.0, W2K and XP came out they were just as bloated when people tried to run it on a 486 or Pentium-I/II with 1MB of RAM. And so the experience was just as bad as it is with Vista today.
For some reason, people at that time weren't too opposed of having to upgrade or replace their older hardware to run the respected OS' so why should that be any different for Vista if you should happen to have a older hardware? Computer hardware today is not as expensive as it was 10-15 years ago.
And that old computer that is running XP? I say keep it for legacy reasons or configure it as a media server (or a machine to hold all your MP3's) or use it for just an Internet browsing machine (that's what we did with an older AMD machine in our house...).
To sort of go off topic, Office 2007 is perhaps taking me the longest to come up to speed on. Namely Word and Excel. Outlook 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 weren't too bad. I still keep plugging away with Office 2007 and the more I use it the more I (sort of) like it.
Sorry for the novel but I've stopped trying to defend Vista and I stay out of the Vista-vs-XP debates and arguments. When I hear people who hate Vista and threaten to go to the Mac I just say "Let 'em". And very rarely do I hear people who make that threat say that they will go to Windows XP. Hm.
And when I do ask them why they feel that going to the Mac is better they almost always come back with saying that they can run Parallel and install Windows XP and have the best of both worlds. Wouldn't it just be easier to revert the PC to XP and buy a Mac?
Anyway, there's no point in trying to reason with people with that attitude and belief; they're entitled to it and who am I to make them think otherwise?
And if you're wondering why I went to the 64-Bit version of Vista BE, mainly to see how much support it had and I do have some applications that will make use of a 64-Bit OS and CPU. Just about all of my 32-Bit applications run just fine - the few that don't are really legacy software.
Vista Redux
by Renegade Knight - 10/20/08 6:20 PM In reply to: Vista BE x32 and x64 by Robert KuhnAs I type this I'm typing on XP machine. I tried to get Vista to work but there wasn't enough support. The drivers that were supposed to be built into Vista didn't work.
My prior computer did have Vista working, but each install had issues. After a reformat I still have an issue and finally disabled the device since Vista can't deal with that driver either.
Every install has had problems. When I finally get it to work, I really like the interface. XP is kludge by comparison. However in spite of anything else I can get XP working like it should. Vista as an upgrade flat out sucks. Vista as the native OS...not so bad unless you do a fresh install to get rid of crapware.
When 7 comes out I'm not upgrading. I'm only going to get it native. My Vista Ultimate Upgrade sits unused on my software shelf. What a waste of money. Especially considering that given the interface I'd rather be using it on this computer now.
The real Irony is that Linux gave me less trouble on this machine than either Vista or XP. Go Figure.
Can't go back ever
by kcorax - 6/19/08 3:46 PM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarMy position on this: I've had some issues when it first came out on the corporate release. One year later, my scanner which didn't work with XP now works with Vista.
The OS is clearly unusable with anything below 2 gigs of RAM, but actually performs better than XP over that threshold.
On the productivity frontier: I simply can't go back to XP ever again. The search, search folders, search in control panel, search in help, search assistants, search APIs for my applications.... it's simply the best desktop search engine out there.
Searchalicious !
Wow
by PressAnyKey - 6/24/08 11:54 AM In reply to: Can't go back ever by kcoraxWith the number of times this thread keeps coming back it's starting to become the new "CAN I GET A GRAND CENTRAL INVITE?".
back to life
by PhotoMan - 6/24/08 2:06 PM In reply to: Wow by PressAnyKeyNo kidding !
Vista's ok...if you're willing to settle
by Max Van Weezwijk - 10/20/08 9:05 PM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarIt's not that Vista has ever had more than it's share of problems. Businesses for the most part look at it from the cold hard cash aspect, not so much emotion, and Vista falls short of filling any need, either by inability to fill that need or inability to distinguish an advantage from what is already in use.
Its fine to like or love something new and shiny, I mean, afterall, the divorce rate is at or above 50% right? Hopefully Windows 7 will come along and put us all out of our misery; the Vista lovers who seem to have to keep declaring such and speaking on behalf of the stay-the-course XP users, an OS that really is a clear step forward.
I don't like rabbits.
by KiskaLoMar12 - 7/13/09 6:37 PM In reply to: Vista's ok...if you're willing to settle by Max Van WeezwijkHello everyone, Windows Vista is my main OS and I really don't like rabbits.
Vista is my main os....
by KiskaLoMar12 - 7/13/09 6:42 PM In reply to: Vista's ok...if you're willing to settle by Max Van WeezwijkI've been using vista as my main OS for about 2 years now, and I've discovered I don't like rabbits.
Not a Windows User, but...
by n74jw - 7/14/09 4:49 PM In reply to: Silent Vista-loving majority? by chustarI have rolled it out at work in our public computing spaces, such as classrooms and labs, without any problems. A couple of apps did not want to work, but it was nothing the Application Compatibility toolkit couldn't handle.
After two years of continued use in a lab environment these machines are just as fast as they were the day I deployed them. I have had no viruses, and only one HDD failure. Windows Complete PC restore brought the data back in under an hour. Vista isn't perfect, and it needs a bit of work to make it run right for a long time, but I don't think it is the disaster some folks seem to make it.
XP, for me, is just not acceptable anymore.
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