Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: Silent Vista-loving majority?

I think the bad press of this product got out of hand. Whether or not a new operating system was needed AT THIS TIME was the real issue. I was very happy with XP however the computer I had would not of made VISTA work correctly.

Since September, I have a new computer that came with VISTA installed. I figured that since I had an original XP version (not oem) if I wasn't happy with what I saw, I would just reformat and put xp on that machine instead. Well, 7 months later and I very happy with VISTA. I never really had an issue with it besides Adobe Acrobat Writer 6 not working on it or Outlook 2002 continuously asking for a password when opening the application for the first time during use. Two minor issues that I fixed anyways since.

The compatibility issue of programs is a lot of BS if you ask me. I can make programs from 95 work on it perfectly. Never had any driver issues that made me rethink this OS. When there was, there was a link to simply update the driver and voila. It's really history repeating itself when XP first came out.

Vista is indeed heavy, but if you think that the next OS will be lighter, you live on another planet. As features get added more memory will be required. Fact from 95 to 98 (cough WinME...now that was crap) to 2000 to XP and now to Vista.

I think that some issues at the beginnig launch gave it bad press by some high profile "tech people" and as usual, people followed that like sheep.

Is Vista made for older machines? NO it is not! Its for computers that have been on the market for the last two years with dual+ processors and gigs of RAM.

Like XP, VISTA will only get better but I hope that MS reconsiders its launching windows for new OS. We are not at the age of Win95 where people lined up for an OS. With a pretty stable XP people are feeling they are getting another OS shoved down their throat when it was not necessary yet. For that, is, IMO why VISTA hasn't lifted in sales as expected and not because of performance.

Although my current computer would not be able to run Vista properly, I have a roommate that uses Vista, and I have to say that its a great running OS. I think the only complaint that my roommates and I have come across is the fact that the USB does not read the flash drives/externals when plugged in... not sure if thats Vista related...
Overall, I think Vista is great (from what i've seen), I just need a new comp =P

"Is anyone here part of the silent vista-loving majority?"

Hi !

No, I am not ! Because it is'nt possible !

Sorry, in french :

soft developpee des OS de plus en plus gros (Taller and Taller !)!
C'est une impasse.
c'est contraire tout principe d'ergonomie

@ more

I find it to be a very good program which is getting better by the day. With it's major thrust in providing security it is the best operating system around for the average person. With SP1 it even got better.

The use of shadow files and restore function have saved me half-a-dozen times from doing a reload. What more can you ask of the program than that?
Myles

Upon getting a Vista machine I had problems and had to send it back to the manufacturer to get it fixed. They put in new hard drives, NICs, speakers, etc. until they were rebuilt, ( did I mention this happened with 2 machines). After 6 months of torture, they upgraded me with more memory (hmmmmm) and faster processors (hmmmm again) just a bigger more powerful machine all around. It was terribly slow right out of the box so I adjusted the Vista settings down to do nothing and now I have a machine that I really like with an OS that is too bloated to use all the bells and whistles. It is aomething like using XP with a sense of more security.

Not only is the essential system in the back nothing super, but the interface, the interface... everything moved from where it had been, nicely hidden or otherwise obscured. In short an interface designed by a drug riddled brain in the last stages of terminal venereal disease - could have done a better job. Congrats Microdolts!

I have been enjoying Vista since I purchased my HP Pavilion A6000-N about a year ago. Other than one rather major hiccup, which was as much my fault as it was Vista's (I tried to install OpenSuSE, and killed my Vista installation absolutely dead when I resized the hard drive to make room - I actually had to send the box back to HP to have them reinstall the OS), I have had no major gripes about Vista.

In August, I wrote a review of Vista for the HTMLCenter blog (http://htmlcenter.com/blog/windows-vista-my-review/) and said basically what a lot of people have already said in this topic. It's different from XP, which is why a lot of people have so much trouble accepting it. However, most those same people complained about XP when it came out, and they all wanted to revert back to Win 98 SE (let's not even discuss Windows ME). People simply are not used to the appearance and performance of Vista.

Vista actually includes a lot of great new features, ranging from security (which, a lot of the negative users will tell you is annoying, but it's the cost of adding security to your applications) to performance to aesthetics. All-in-all, I am much more impressed with Vista and its improvements over XP than I ever was with the "improvements" XP made over Win98.

Sure, I've had some minor issues with my hardware, occasionally, but they are never major problems. In the beginning, I had some problems with my display driver constantly resetting, but those seem to have gone away after a series of updates. I have to occasionally reconfigure my audio settings after Vista installs an update, because the built-in Vista sound driver (to which Vista defaults whenever an update is installed) does not work with my sound card, so I have to disable it and set my Realtek driver as the default.

Other than that, the only major complaint I've got about Vista is the issue with the COM Surrogate that's been discussed on countless forums (if you have thumbnails enabled within Windows Explorer, Explorer will probably crash fairly consistently when viewing your media files - but Microsoft blames this on the media codecs and seems to refuse to look into possible soltions).

Of course, if it was possible, I would still prefer to use OpenSuSE for most of my computing needs, but that's just not realistic with the majority of the world using proprietary software and hardware built for Windows. If I have to use a Microsoft OS, I am happy to use Vista.

VISTA?? You've got to be kidding. Been there, done that, several times. Seriously, over the past year plus I've had occasion to purchase a few new 'high end' machines, (Dell, Gateway, HP, Acer, etc.), in the ~$1,000 price range with factory installed versions of VISTA, latest SP. In each case, I ended up returning the machines within the 'trial' period due to 'numerous' compatibility problems, (drivers, etc.), and SUPER SUPER SLOW performance, (as compared to XP) - even with the recommended 4MB of installed RAM. Microgates and company have once again pulled a fast one on us, (Remember ME?), and through their slick ads have managed to dupe a large portion of the public into believing they have a better OS. HA! I just purchased a couple of brand new Lenovo ThinkPad laptop machines with XP Professional installed, (with only 2GB of RAM), and am very pleased. In fact, just yesterday I installed XP SP3 and have noted even faster boot and application performance times than with SP2. As por moi, I'll stay with XP until the post Vista OS, (currently under development), becomes available, and maybe by then M$ will get it right, maybe.

I bought a new desktop in the early Vista days when I could've saved a few dollars buying the same hardware with XP. I opted for the new OS on the grounds of keeping my machine relavent longer...which is why I went for the core duo processor and the 2 gigs of RAM. Nothing monster, but enough muscle to keep me happy for a few years. I didn't count on Vista's hunger for resources. The new machine seemed just as pokey as the Pentium 4/XP box I left behind. The interface is prettier, but not much more helpful than XP. The security is better but more annoying. I spent some extra money and sweated the drivers situation (and replaced a printer) to do Vista, but I don't feel I moved forward. I still have the same computing experience I had 6 years ago.

I have used Vista since RC1 and have found it to be every bit the worthy successor to XP. Compatablity issues have been few and far between for me and usually fixable with a little bit of know how and the wonderous Google.

I personally just switched to running only Ubuntu on my own laptop (I like the customization offered by Linux), but I got my wife running vista almost a year ago. She is no where near technology literate and she loves it!

It works with an old HP computer, all the flash disks and the only problem is that the firewall turns itself off when the computer is off. Bummer! Global Finance's Kate

I've been using it for a couple of months now and it's fine. I've got a new, powerful computer so all the graphics (eye candy) run and look fine. It still isn't as nifty as the Mac's graphic user interface (GUI), but it's a lot sexier than XP. I've had no trouble getting all my peripherals to work because Vista has been out long enough for almost all the manufacturers to come out with updated driver software. Be that as it may, I still run XP on my old laptop and, for the moment at least, I have no intention of converting it to Vista.

I have a Toshiba S2 laptop (circa 2005) and a Dell Dimension 8100 desktop (circa 2000), neither of which are officially on the Vista compatibility list from either vendor. Regardless, I waited until SP1 was released and then installed it on both systems. Vista is smoother, faster and much more responsive than XP ever was. I can only imagine how great it would be on a new system.
We always repeat this hate-then-love cycle with any new operating system release. History always repeats, in this sense. People love to complain and vent while the positive experiences often go unspoken.

I have been using Windows Vista for the past year and a half and I have not yet had any problems with the operating system that I would've deemed a deal breaker for me. So far, I haven't had a blue screen in YEARS and that's a really nice change of pace. I haven't had the MONDO driver problems that the community has shouted out on, and all those various problems everyone's been screaming about. File copying's SLOW, but its not like it can't copy the darn thing and SP1's fixed that... Sorta. And yes games are slower on Vista than on XP, but honestly I don't feel it so much at all.

To talk about this Vista, in the community I find is a bit like talking about some taboo. It automatically gets slammed, even if a person hasn't used it, or even tried it. Vista is not ALL that bad y'know. REALLY, and hating on it just because its the cool thing to do, or just because its too easy to bring the hate to microsoft is just lazy in my opinion. The strange thing is, when one complains EVERYONE hears it, but no one ever effuses about how normal something actually is. Vista does exactly what an operating system should do for me, work normally and not throw too many curveballs for me to intercept, and that really is all I need.

I have had Vista as a beta tester from the Longhorn days and while I like a great deal of the new features, the ball got dropped on several important issues and others were handed off to the wrong sources. I'm a PC tech by profession and found from my customers that Vista could have been far more acceptable if a few items were handled in a better fashion. The biggest reason Vista got bad ratings is MS basically did the equivalent of changing the furniture and cabinets around in a blind person's house. They put things in different places and changed the names of known items. This made it difficult for those who weren't tech intensive that had spent a lot of time developing their workflow over the years. The look and feel didn't change as drastically during previous transitions between 95, 98, 2000, XP, etc. the workflow was still very similar with those transitions. While Vista is easier for someone that never used a computer before, it is hardest on people that have used windows in the past that are afraid to explore the new playground. MS did the same thing with Office 2007. The other big thing that gave Vista a bad rap was the lack of drivers for older equipment. MS did much better in the past at supporting older peripherals but the majority of customer complaints I got were that they couldnt use the existing printer/multifunction devices. MS didnt update most of the device drivers to work with Vista as they had done in the past like from 98 to XP. They left that duty to peripheral manufacturers who would rather force as many people to buy a new one as possible and had no desire to create a driver for an old product. The problem MS has is that it is Vista who took all the heat for that one. I like the way Vista has consistently healed itself when you would otherwise end up with a blue screen of death from a driver or software conflict. Having used Macs also, Vista has come closer to the look and feel of OS 10.x. Vista is now a new visual experience but it has a pretty high price in overhead. If you install Vista and XP on identical hardware, the XP runs substantially faster even with most of Vistas visuals turned off. I hope MS will learn from this, but somehow they claim they are listening to you but they havent ever heard a word Ive said. I suggested back in 98 that text in error message dialog boxes should be selectable so you dont have to type the whole message when searching for a solution, but it has never been implemented and Im sure Im not the only one to mention it.