Windows Vista forum: Poll: Whats your personal experience with Vista?

First Issue: Vista is ment to do that when it is sleeping for a long time of inactivity but you if you dont like that you hibernation

I have had Vista Premium, 32/63, vista Biz 32/64 and Ultimate SP-1 32/64 and still if I want speed and no bulk, which I do, I just don't like Vista. Just think just loading the OS in Vista is between 20 and 29 Gig. windows XP is around 10 Gig and Ubuntu 8.04 is around 5.4 Gig with software.

Vista is just not very elegant and it is a resource hog. I installed all the above on a Intel Sata Rosa chipset with 3 Gigs of RAM and XP Pro Flies as does Ubuntu while Vista trots. Vista is OK but not worth the money. Between friends XP SP2 and XP SP3, I say XP Pro SP-2 rules.

I bought a new computer with this monstrosity Vista installed. I really loathe it. The constant problems are enough to make me never want to use a computer again! I hate it. Give me 98, 2000 or XP any day.

I'm stuck in China right now and I promise you this. Microsoft isn't giving anything away, the Chinese are just stealing it. I work for a prominent design firm which I won't name and when I went on the server to grab some software for my laptop almost, every single application had a crack folder to go along with it. Windows, autocad, photoshop, all pirated. The crazy thing is I work for a big firm that definitely has the money to legitimately buy all these programs but from their point of view, why spend the money when you know the government won't do anything about it. Hell, the Chinese government uses pirated games on the Olympic website.

Yes, for certain situations. I own my own company Liquid Squid Studios LLC. We specialize in Web Design/ Development and Marketing.
I have a Vista Laptop and an XP box. I am constantly working on both right in front of me on my desk. I would recommend Vista to anyone who has multiple computers.If one is not compatible with any driver, software, hardware you can use the different OS. My laptop is my giant word processing, audio playing, e-mail hording, spread-sheet creating, work flow processing monster. My box PC is my Scanner reading, 2-D graphics creating, Call of Duty playing, Wireframe building, audio blasting, movie watching robot. Both are on the same network and share infromation easily. As long as you are not solely dependent on one machine, you should be fine with Vista. Remember XP before SP2... it wasn't all that great. I can't wait for Vista SP2.

You blame Adobe for not developing a stable Flash for Vista. Is it really their fault? They have to use the tools provided to them from Microsoft. Personally I have no experience in programming, but according to history, MS isn't renowned for sharing information on their systems. Adobe MIGHT simply have too little information to develop a stable Flash for Vista.

To finish this: It MIGHT also be Adobe's fault, but my opinion (Read that as semi-informed opinion, not a proven fact) is that Flash for Vista not working perfectly is because MS isn't sharing information pertinent to the problem.

I have old versions of other software that I have installed that were programed before Vista's was even announced that run fine. And seems how other companies can create stable code using Microsoft's Vista SDK, means that it can't be a problem with the SDK. While donnah007 may have problems with Adobe Reader, I actually don't have any problem, which suggests even more that it's a problem with the Flash software not the SDK. My motherboard doesn't even have Vista driver's, let alone 64-bit drivers, yet other than having to reinstall the drivers I do have after I installed SP1, has worked flawlessly. So really, it can't be because of Microsoft's SDK.

Quote Lee Koo "It's hard to believe that Microsoft Vista has been out for a year and a half already. And ever since its release to the general public, from my perspective, I would have to say the majority of the things I've come across about Vista haven't been all that positive--with complaints ranging from software and hardware incompatibilities to IT staff holding off on upgrades to their environments. But you know what? To me, that just comes with the territory of a new OS release. Eventually, many of these kinks will be ironed out--at least, we hope they will be."

It only comes with the territory if you use Windoze. With any other OS there may be minor bugs but not the hopeless mess that Vista seems to be.

If ever the day comes that I have no choice except Windoze (of any flavor) that is the day I stop using computers.

My computers are tools that always work when I need them and don't need me to spend time fixing crashes, freezes, virus attacks, software that stops working or just doesn't work, etc.

I have had vista for 15 months. My greatest discuss has come from microsoft staff that pretend to protect us from pirates. I purchased my real copy from amazon.com and was almost arrested for installing it. Arrested over the phone that is. Since the microsoft phone harrassment I am no longer a loyal developer.If they did me like that they will do all like that. I do not need insults added to the difficulties that vista has presented to me a developer.
I will not use vista and I will sell it for almost nothing just to get rid of it. I will stick with suse and win-2003 enterprise since they are stable operating systems and I have used 2003 server since early 2003. My records have relied upon the stable 2003 and I will stay there for years until I am super happy with suse-linux.
I did not help develop vista, but maybe I should have, since I do not accept half-done work. Vista would never have hit the streets if I had something to do with it. I would advise all to look beyond the dependence upon one platform and try the great free linux programs. They are absolutely free, but you must google the name of the unix source that you seek for free downloads. Most (.org sites) give the softwares away at ftp sites rather than htm. html sites. Good luck all and have a large hard drive or dvd burner for the linux softwares if you plan on downloading the suse, red-hat or hundreds of linux titles Just go to google and ask for all linux operating titles and then ask for free downloads of that software and watch what happens.

Apple work very hard to achieve maximum compatiblity but MS works equally hard to create incompatibility with everyone else. Even Java script is crippled on Windoze to make it incompatible with other OSs.

The MS philosophy is to try to force everyone to use Windoze by trying to make the Web and their software incompatible with anything except Windoze.

Mac uses intel hardware. Wireless cards, processors, motherboards, etc. Mac does not make that hardware, Intel does. I believe Macs initial kick off to get people to switch was the fact that they switched to an intel platform so people could compare Windows / Mac side by side and see for themselves, that Mac is faster for one, more secure, and with that in mind has much more value than windows. The difference you are paying for is not just hardware, but operating system. Of course you would pay more for a Mercedes S-class than a Chevy Cobalt.

So Far the only problem I have had is my my old Creative Zen player would not work Vista.However after updating the driver on the device it works fine. Slow down is also not a problem since my my computer is new and designed for use with the system. Otherwise it just takes some getting used to and learning how things work. At first it was A little confusing but now I can operate it as good As I did XP.

Couldn't agree more. Mac interfaces with everything. Microsoft simply assumes that people are working in a complete Microsoft environment. If something, hardware or software, happens to be compatible with other systems, great. Otherwise, Mivrosoft couldn't care less. I'm sure that billions of dollars have been spent alone on making web sites compatible with IE. I'm surprised someone hasn't sued Microsoft for that alone, and I can't understand why anyone continues to use IE.

--Kenoli

I have had the works--Windows 3.1, 95, 98, XP SP2 and now Vista Ultimate-both 32 bit on my laptop and 64 bit on my desktop. I had many problems with XP when it first came out, but BILL'S BOYS corrected them. I always upgrade hardware and software about every three to four years, if you don't stay in touch with the times and changes, your going to be left behind. You have to make adjustments for new software, hardware and what have you, but nobody forces anybody to make the initial change to a new OS. So to anybody that blames Microsoft or the hardware manufacturers, why did you make the change to the new Vista OS, is your XP OS going by the wayside. You people have a choice keep what you got or opt for the new technology. Your present programs will work , but they won't change to match other upcoming tech changes. So if you make decisions towards new software and hardware situations and they don't work for you , I don't think it is right to blame the manufacturers. By the way I am retired and I do not or ever have worked for any computer companies.
Goodluck, it your decision.

I bought a new Toshiba laptop (R500) with 2GB of memeory in late Janaury 2000 with Windows Vista Business. My thoughts were that after more than 1 year on the market Vista would have shed most of the initial problems and with SP1 imminent things looked good. I was really determined to stick with Vista and have spend a lot of time on making it work. However this weekend I decided to give up and downgrade to WIndows XP and it is unbelievable how much faster and more efficient Windows XP is. It is like my computer has become Turbocharged.

Here are the problems I ahve had with Vista:

1. The 'Indexing' never worked because it enver finished. I could not use the search function in Outlook 2007 and not on the desktop. It always said it wasn't finished. I forced it to restart several times, but with the same result. Finding information quickly is essentail for me as a business user with several years worth of materials stored on my PC.
2. I have a 3G modem with Vodafone data subscription. The modem never worked with Vista. I upgraded the software and that eventually ruined the modem (Costing me 170 Euro). The modem I used specifically said it was (Windows Vista compatible). many other users told me since that there 3G isn't working with Vista.
3. I use this laptop mostly when I travel, but a desktop in the office. I synchronise my files with a 'briefcase' which works fine. It also works in Vista, but very slow. Not just the synchronising, but also opening a file from within the briefcase in an office application. Synchronisation took between 75s and 90 secs typically in Vista(In Windows XP 20 to 25 seconds after downgrading) and opening a file between 10 and 40 seconds (almost instant in Windows XP)
4. Quite a few applications that worked very well on XP are not Vista compatible (Such as Adobe Acrobat 7) and I have spend quite a lot of money to upgrade to newer versions which don't offer me anything extra for my use.

I must admit that Vista has a nice interface and will probably be the future. However tehre is nothing that Vista can do (for me as a business user) that XP can't do.

I would advise anyone that has XP with office 2003, spend your money on getting office 2007 and don't upgrade XP. With office come a lot of teh features that make Vista somewhat interesting (such as indexing and sharper more readable character sets)