Windows Vista seems to be getting some negative press from everyone i know or see. I seem to be the only person that actually likes it. Most people have installed it then since removed it because eather they found it to slow, crashing alot, audio would not work, mouse would act funny, to much crap on the system, to much of a ram hog, the list is endliss. I could probubly fix there problems in only a matter of minutes but im begining to think vista might begin to get the lable for being the worst operating system ever.Now personally i fined it way more functional, more stable, faster then XP and OSX, but other people have not said the same.

A whole lot of people who use Vista and complain do so because they use more oftern than not 512 MB RAM and also dont have the appropriate version of drivers. I used Vista and it is kool. Prefer it to XP or OSX, which I use at work.

As a user of Windows Vista Home Basic and Ultimate Edition, I really believe the negative press generated by Vista has been created by ignorant people or IT magazines looking to upsale their magazines or websites. As I frequently blog on zdnet, PC World, PC Magazine, and other websites, I have not had a really any technical issues with Vista as an operating system. Using both Basic and Ultimate, as well as dabbling in the Business version, I really have yet to see a 32 bit version that is anywhere near Windows Millenium Edition bad. 64 bit Vista is a whole nother animal and I think it needs maturity time. Perhaps the next 64 bit OS will be very useable as we are seeing the initial migration from 32 to 64.

 I believe the root problems of the Vista problems come from machines that weren't really designed for Vista use. A lot of the XP machines are simply not cut to do Vista and users are forcing the machines to work beyond their rated design. Lot of XP machines have a limit of 1 to 2 GB, are single core processors or badly designed singles cores (AKA: early Pentium 4's), old PATA drives, older memory systems, and aged system boards simply cannot do Vista. People want to hold on to these systems, but they can't push them up to Vista. When they try to upgrade them, all kinds of things happen because these users didn't know when to retire a system. Personally, based upon my own construction and upgrading experiences, 6 years is the best life expectacy you can expect from a system. To me, that means on the same existing board, a major overhaul at the 3 year mark. When I do that kind of overhaul, thats memory, hard drives, video cards, processors, and power supply.

Part of it was the unusually long development cycle of Vista. They had to start from scratch after the initial codebase crashed and switching to the Windows Server 2003 codebase. Also, Vista was designed with upcoming technologies in mind. Dual cores, DDR 2 and DDR 3, Hybrid Hard Drives, SATA Drives, and other uprated technologies. A lot of legacy technologies were left in the past and with good reason. Its kind of like the way cars were made before the first fuel shortages of the 1970's. Cars were using leaded gasoline engines and very high octane engines. They lead to a lot of pollution and generally very wasteful. Today's cars are a lot more fuel efficient, more environmentally friendly, and have greater functionality.

Vista does have its pitfalls. Left out technologies are definitely a reason why Vista is percieved as less than it was conceptually designed. I really think the 512 MB minimum memory was a bad idea. I think they should have designed it with at 256 MB minimum or 384 MB. That way, a 512 MB XP machine could handle Vista better. There a lot of memory issues with Vista. A lot of people are complaining about memory leaks. I believe there is some truth to it. The issue with the video games and graphics cards is another issue. Personally, I believe that Vista should get out of the way and shut as much of itself down to allocate for games. The problems with the games breaking under Vista is really stupid, since we have had years of testing. My big bone with Vista is the stealth updating but that also happens in XP. I don't know if you knew, but Microsoft has confirmed that XP and Vista will auto update even if you disable. I believe if you don't update, then you should suffer whatever security flaws happen. I guess I can see Microsoft's side, considering how Blaster really battered the internet and millions of PC's worldwide. I also don't like the fact that Microsoft can tap into your system and see what programs or content you have. Is it really any of their business to know what you have in your PC? The issue with gigabit networking and media is also one that baffles the mind. I don't know why you should have to lower networking resources when multimedia is played. This issue doesn't happen in XP and was a badly concieved concept in Vista. I really do hope Microsoft works that issue out, because I multitask with media playing a lot. I shouldn't have my gigabit network connnection impared because I'm listening to something in iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Other than those issues, I think Vista is a rock solid OS comparable to Windows 2000 or dare I say XP. I do believe it is superior to Apple platform, because like author Jon Gruber said, "the Finder is trying to support two opposing paradigms, the browser metaphor and the spatial metaphor." In the end, it does not do either metaphor well. Ultimately, Apple has not really evolved the natural interface of their operating system. It is still very much like the original 1984 Mac OS. You can quite literally go back to the orignal Mac OS and back to OS-X 10.4, and not really have much difficulty getting around. I feel this dumbing down of the OS is an insult to people. I like the fact that Microsoft has done well to push foward and evolve the interface. From the Program Manager, moving to the Windows 95 Start Menu, and ultimately to the Windows Orb, you can feel that they are giving credit to people intelligence. Now OS-X is stuck because they cannot evolve the interface for those Mac customers who really don't want to change their experience. Obviously, Apple adds new programs and functions to their operating systems, but they can't really be Windows and can't get past being Mac OS. What I mean by that any significant change to Apple's OS will result in an entirely new learning curve. It won't be that easy, open and start out of the box experience. This idea just limits what Apple can do and ultimately leaves it in third place. I believe this gives both the Windows GUI and the Linux based GUI, a distinct advantage in terms of revolution and evolution of our interactions with the PC.

My best advice is that if you believe Vista is a good and solid operating system, don't hold back and be silent. Speak out and praise it publically so we can shatter this haze of ignorant speak about Vista. I am no means a Microsoft cheerleader or anything like that, but its a damn good OS. It boots, it works, its getting better and the future looks good. People should blog about their positive experiences as well as make objective and concise documentation about things they don't like. This way Microsoft gets the message about whats good and what stinks about Vista. Don't be like the guys at PC Magazine who sound like they are whining about the same old networking issues. Networking is complex and sometimes its not a quick fix. Being a PC user requires a slightly longer and committed attention span. We have enough problems withour A.D.D. society without ignorant fools looking for a quick buck. Make the call yourself of how good or bad it is.

Adobaw:

I will just like to add that I hope there is an update to IE 7 in SP1, and I hope MS will be more forthcoming with information on IE 8.

I have a very good feeling that there will be an update to IE7 in SP1, thought it will probably be just a general security and reliability update (such as the IE6SP1, unless my memory is failing me :P). As for IE8, they should tell us a bit more. Maybe after SP1? :) 

Personally I love Vista. I don't believe for a second that anyone truely believes this to be a bad operating system... maybe they've had a bad experience because of incompatible hardware or old specs, but that's not the OS's fault. I do have my issues with it (a lot of "Not Responding" errors) but otherwise it beats XP hands down (in SPITE of the added eye candy).

That's how i feel. My only complaint is the UAC which i think it should have a setting on how strict it is.

• Off - Who would pick this one X.x
• Miled - Only asks for things like major computer settings and unrequested downloads
• Moderat - Will ask you about moving files and the settings from miled
• Full - Will ask you exactly as it dose today (application files, ect)

If they ever did that i feel that it would be great. About other people though I have a stronge feeling that alot of people actually truly believe that the operating system sucks. If drivers dont work its always blamed on the Operating System because most people dont understand how it works. Even when a program crashes. Lots of people show there horrors with the BSOD which most people that have any knowledge with computers know that its a driver problem and that windows is trying to fix it. Most people though think it's just another windows problem. Youtube i have to say is one of the main reasons for the increase of bias against windows vista.

You know, UAC never really bothers me. I see it probably once a day (only because I check my reliability stats each day), and only occasionally other times. Honestly, I don't feel it's much different than XP always asking me, "Do you want to download this file?.... are you sure you want to download this file?.... Do you want to trust the *insert company name here*?

I'll say this, it's better than Apple's OS X that always has you give a user name and password.

What about that Chris Pirillo. He has to be the worst. He seems to be bosting the problems (so called) with vista.

Good example http://youtube.com/watch?v=_pbRS9TXtVk

Yes, I've seen him before... he is a moron, a tool and probably bought Vista with the money Apple gave him.

Cfischer83:

Yes, I've seen him before... he is a moron, a tool and probably bought Vista with the money Apple gave him.

Or using a bootlegged copy that is highly broken and such.

Slightly more likely :)

(WHAT? No smileys...)

Yeah I agree that there seems to be a lot of Vista bashing going on, and I'm not really sure it is warranted.

My own experience has been great.  I installed it as a dual boot on a home-built AMD system, and it has worked great.  I knew from the initial reviews of the betas that you were going to need some extra memory, so I expanded up to 1GB ahead of time.  With all the eye candy on, it is a little slower than XP, but of course I only have an AMD Athlon 1800 and a ATI 9600.  Turning off Aero makes it work just as fast as XP. 

I have been using that great feature where all the different versions are on the same disk, and you can try each one.  I'm currently using Home Premium.  Getting up-to-date drivers sped up the system a lot.  I just wish M-Audio would get off their duff and write a Vista driver for their Audiophile 2496.

 UAC has not bothered me.  I made a normal user account and use that all of the time.  UAC does not pop up as often as it does running as an admin.  For normal everyday use, it never bothers me.  It pops up where I expect it, like installing software or making a system change.

Napster needs to update their software, it seems to crash under Vista, though it looks like it is doing some nefarious stuff behind the scenes anyway since the client interface keeps working.  I really like the new Live Mail application, Photo Gallery, new effects in Movie Maker, and I love IE 7, especially the built-in RSS system.
 

My own experience with Vista has been very good. I did a dual boot upgrade on an typical HP media centre PC. Dual core, 2 Gb of ram. I replaced the low end nvidia GPU with a mid level Radeon GPU. Only directX 9 but my widows experience index went from 2.1 to 4.4. For a $100 upgrade, I got my moneys worth.

 I would agree with many of the feelings expressed here.  I'm still amazed that to this day, when I mention that we are deploying Vista in the school district where I work, people in the education sector, and in the IT sales/supply companies that sell to us are incredulous that we would run Vista.  They say "It's a nightmare."  "It's a failure."  Now I'm not saying that it's a panacea either, and I'll mention some of the issues that trouble me.  Overall though, I've been using Vista as my main OS in my office since Beta 2.  Even then, disregarding NVidia and Realtek driver issues, I found Vista to be stable.  I run it also at home (Home Premium there), on an older AMD64 3000+ with 1.5 GB of RAM and I find the system to be responsive and stable.  Of course, I know what I'm doing.  The closer you are to the minimum specs of any operating system, the more aggressive you need to be on the way the computer is set up and used.  I do not need 2GB of RAM for Vista to work well, which is the current dogma on the net.  Average users probably do, because they're going to have 10 different background tasks installed and running within a month of buying their machine.

Now, at work I will say that UAC is troublesome.  We run Active Directory, and I can't exactly give everyone Administrator level account access for those Standard user UAC prompts every time someone wants to delete a shortcut that is on the "Public Desktop"  It's fine for the students to be locked down so tightly...actually that makes my day.  However, secretaries and principals are another matter.  I'd like them to run as standard users, but it's just not possible.

Also, I find the network browsing in Vista to be slow!  It's incredibly ironic that when I am booted into Ubuntu on my same office machine that loading the 300-400 or so machines on the domain network listing is almost instantaneous, but on Vista it takes 20-30 seconds the first time it is opened.  It finds other Vista machines first, and then the other XP machines and 2003 servers show up.  That's annoying.

But still, I have XP installed also on my office PC and I rarely use it.  I feel that Vista may not be as polished as it could be, but it is still better than Windows XP.  And the driver issues that plagued Vista's beginning were ridiculous when you consider the fact on how long Vista was available as a public beta.  What were the hardware companies doing while Vista was in development?  Was NVida surprised by Vista's launch?

Part of the complaining about Vista is that many people are irritated by needing to learn something new, and we were all allowed to wallow around in XP-land for far too long before Vista came along.  Now Microsoft has to fight the battle that it's own shipping delays brought about.
 

Thats entirely true. I feel though that even people that sell computers dont recommend the operating system. Not one person i have talked to recommended vista. They all told me that vista is very unstable and that nothing works on it. Even people that are pro's at computer building are complaining about it. Everyone i know pritty much hates it and complains about it. One person said that vista would not let them install Live messenger... I dought that was entirly true, but thats the label its getting.