Posted on 03/09/2008 5:23:13 PM PDT by Obi-Wandreas
"They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know.
By RANDALL STROSS ONE year after the birth of Windows Vista, why do so many Windows XP users still decline to “upgrade”?
Microsoft says high prices have been the deterrent. Last month, the company trimmed prices on retail packages of Vista, trying to entice consumers to overcome their reluctance. In the United States, an XP user can now buy Vista Home Premium for $129.95, instead of $159.95.
An alternative theory, however, is that Vista’s reputation precedes it. XP users have heard too many chilling stories from relatives and friends about Vista upgrades that have gone badly. The graphics chip that couldn’t handle Vista’s whizzy special effects. The long delays as it loaded. The applications that ran at slower speeds. The printers, scanners and other hardware peripherals, which work dandily with XP, that lacked the necessary software, the drivers, to work well with Vista.
Can someone tell me again, why is switching XP for Vista an “upgrade”?"
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Meanwhile, her 4-year old iBook runs Leopard 10.5.2 just fine; the only thing it won't do on hers is the translucent menu bar (which she can't stand anyway).
My laptop came with VISTA.
It wouldn’t run a lot of my programs and I finally formatted it off the drives and UP graded back to XP.
I found it to be very slow booting and loading and a resource hog.
VISTA also froze my laptop up on several occasions.
Upgrading Windows makes little sense. It actually takes a year or two for hardware makers to catch up with new versions of Windows. When XP came along the cheapo computers were delivered with 256 megs of memory. This was a big mistake.
Since Vista was first delivered, CPU power per dollar has increased by 50 percent, more than offsetting the performance drag of XP. It is also possible to get a decent video card for $70. Not a game quality screamer, but one capable of displaying Vista’s features.
I’ve been told Vista has all sorts of problems. I plan to stick with XP until someone whose opinion I respect tells me Vista is now OK.
I’ll be buying a new computer later this year, and I’ve already been promised by Dell that I can buy it with the new XP AND NOT with VISTA!!
the remote desktop function was dramatically better. a few other features were infinitely nicer but the entire ‘cancel or continue’ thing is something I’d like to personally beat some MS programmer over. Having to ‘continue or cancel’ is like having to press 1 for English.
That being said, I’ve got both MAC and Dell laptops and I still use the Dell more for business. Maybe I’m just not hip enough to really like MAC or I haven’t made enough effort to have it ‘grow’ on me.
Yep, it has NOTHING to do with cost.
None the less, all my other PC's still have XP on them. I see no advantages on my Vista machine.
I am SORRY that I got a DELL with Vista. I tried to write them a personal letter that came back! It is easier to crack the code to get into the computers at the PENTAGON than to be able to speak in ENGLISH to someone at Dell. I tried to roll back to XP, and it wouldn’t let me. I sold mine in France. I pity the poor people that had to find drivers to get it to run. I’m using Apple, I saw the light! And I don’t have so many ISSUES that cause my blood pressure to rise. Life is a bit easier now.
Maureen Dowd?
After working with Vista for six months, I trashed it and returned to XP. It is slow, especially for gaming, as compared to XP and the security in it is way overplayed. It is cumbersome and unwieldy to work with. I personally do not like it -— and it is gone. Am now back with XP Pro and doing just fine.
The really irritating thing is getting drivers for both software programs but more especially for other HardWare. HP is currently 9 months behind the promised driver for their HP LaserJet 1000, but still promising one.
Color me finished with HP products.
That should read 250 GB Hard Drive
I can’t get certain Quicktime productions to perform on Vista. I’ve had trouble with internet connectivity (which fixed itself after one of the gazillion patches was installed that have gone out). I like the gadgets, but some are huge CPU hogs. So, like you, I don’t really see much of an advantage. Plus, I had to learn the new Office components which are snazzy, but who wants to learn something new when the old works just fine.
Hey, I’ve got a piece of fresh frozen dog crap my dog dropped in the snow. I will sell it to you for $500.
What, you won’t buy it?
OK, I’ll drop the price to $350. How does that sound?
No?
OK, I’ll throw in some yellow snow for free! From the same dog, too!
My company laptop runs on Vista. I does some odd stuff including lots of freeze ups, bad boots and I swear at any given time I’m one keystroke away from a full crash.
Did anybody else read “Fire in the Valley”? How about see the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”.
Gates is a High School drop out who bought MS DOS from a brilliant programmer in his garage who was too stupid to know what he had for a couple of grand.
The rest is history.
Is this a great country or what?
I’ve got 2 complaints with Vista, that are really inexcusable.
1. No OpenGL support. OpenGL (Open Graphics Language) is a largely unregulated, but very powerful and common approach taken by gamers and by workstations. AutoCAD, OrCAD, Doom, Quake, AutoCAD Inventor, AutoCAD 3D and Photoshop, to mention a few, all use OpenGL.
To intentionally drop support for these programs that are ESSENTIAL to several classes of industry is to sabotage your customer. Imagine the startup where a man invests his retirement to buy new machines in the hopes of realizing his dream - only to discover that his dream is doomed because Microsoft abandoned OpenGL without warning, notice or a disclaimer of any type.
2. Same game, same hardare but different Operations Systems have shown that now only does WinXP perform faster, it also is less prone to system errors. So, buy a new game for your $2,500 PC and you’ll find that this machine with VISTA plays your new game slower than your 3 year old PC. This is not an upgrade - this is theft by deception.
Can I have your Mac?????
;D
And run Vista 64 Ultimate
The OS runs just fine. It starts fast and runs without a hitch. I do have a few programs that are not compatible. To solve this problem I run XP on a virtual machine.
I think most people who cry about this OS just don't have the computer to handle it, or do not have the technical know how to “make things work” when they have to.
It's a new OS, in a year or so most of the compatibility issues will be a thing of the past.
Gates dropped out of Harvard. High school dropouts don't go there.
Try early in the morning. The Indian reps take over in the early afternoon (PST). Problem is, (most of) Dell's American reps are less than competent, so one is often better off taking to India.
I got a Dell with Vista about six months ago. Big mistake. The daily upgrades screw things up on a regular basis, and it's snail slow. ...even with my 2 GB RAM. One of the Indians suggested I upgrade to 4 GB RAM (for $100), which is the computer's limit. Not sure what I'll do.
Hopefully, I will be able to skip Vista entirely (just as I was able to skip Windows ME). I am convinced that MS will throw a few service packs at Vista and then replace it entirely with something that works.
A few months ago I built a new machine to manage all my video, tv, music, HDTV, etc. Core 2 Quad, 4 gig, NVidea EVGA, etc. etc. Vista Home Premium was on sale for $80. Vista indeed was horrendous the first few months after I had it. It ran fine after I first installed it, but just bogged down every time I tried to install stuff, but it “learns” and speeds up after a while. My games scream on the new machine. Streaming HDTV from the internet is flawless. The only real problem I had was with old hardware. My 1-year-old router didn’t work on the new machine and I had to buy a new one. I will withhold any further opinion on Vista until after Service Pack 1 is installed which is due any day now.
A lot of it seems to boil down to comfort level. I started out as a kid in the early 80s doing a bit of programming on an Apple ][. Some of the programs were my own, others came out of PBS Electric Company magazine, which used to publish the code for you to write your own games. Anyone remember that?
I've been using Macs for as long as I can remember. I'm no longer a MacMac and don't begrudge anyone their decision to use Windows. As long as I don't have to use it myself.
I recently bought 2 different PC's with vista premium.
My only complaint is slow reboots
Gates dropped out of Harvard? How’s the guy going to earn a living without a college degree?
I remain happy with my W2k and see no reason to “up”grade.
“dule core”??? That must be incredibly advanced. I’ve never even heard of it.
I could really use some help, Please!! I know absolutely NOTHING about this program
My son was given a new computer fro graduation last year with Vista.
He is n “A” school right now and his Word program trial has expired so he has no word processing. Is this normal? Does he have to buy an upgrade or is there a way he can work with this Vista crap?
The issues I have seen is when Best Buy, etc. were selling marginal laptops and their McDonald's Employees were stuffing Vista into them. Of course they all came back. I actually saw one that was sold to a neighbor that had 512 Meg of Ram installed; It was so slow it was not usable.
I noticed on my relative's new monster machine that 750 megs (3.25 Gigs free) of Ram were in use, with only a browser open...So no wonder my nieghbor's machine was paralyzed. Well, it DID have a Vista sticker on it.
As I upgrade my machines here, I put stickers on them, too. They have a Penguin on them.
VISTA was just another reason to buy another iMAC....
And that is the problem. People think that Vista Capable means their machine CAN handle it. A reasonable assumption.
Kind of like buying a 100 HP car with a sticker on it that says "10 second 1/4 mile capable." Sure, just buy the 400 HP model.
When you have the connections Gates got, and were in the right business at the right time, then yes.
But for those of us who don't have the idea for a killer product, employment is the only answer - and employers these days want to see a degree for jobs that don't involve French Fries.
I believe it was originally Q Dos, but no matter. Vista continually crashed my ‘old’ Latitude C640 which had 2 gig RAM. I just got a Latitude D630, dual core Centrino, 4 gig RAM and an nVidia video card. It seems to handle Vista Business 64-bit just fine, and I haven’t run into any driver problems yet. I’m still learning Vista but have to agree - it’s a RAM hog. XP Pro is still just fine and other than a few whiz-bang gadgets, I see nothing with Vista worth the $$ at this time.
I just spent 9 hours helping install XP on my mother’s new laptop that could only ship with Vista. What made it hard to do was the fact that Dell is complicit with MS in making it very difficult to get the XP drivers (which DO exist).
I had to do some clever sleuthing to get it done, but the damn thing works MUCH better now.
That being said, I think there are definitely people at MS that can write code, I just don't know if the management will let them.
Vista is fine with 4GB memory. I’ve tried it with 1.5GB and 2.0GB, and had to downgrade back to XP both times.
I work with computers and have all kinds of machines, including Mac and Linux. I have to keep up with different OS's.
I have Vista on my work desktop at home. The part I like about it is that I find the new interface faster to work with. It's ergonomically more fluid than XP.
The worst part of Vista is any network file operations, or copy/paste to external drives. It is an absolute disaster. If you do work over the network to XP machines don't use Vista.
I also test a lot of software and Vista is a crap shoot when you install programs. I have an image backup I use to restore the OS drive and I use it at least once or twice a month when something ganks the OS.
On the other hand, I have it on my wife's machine, who just uses it for her school, web and office work and it's been great. She likes it. It handles web media very well.
Customers I have who aren't power users are OK with it as well.
Bottom line, if you work with network files a lot, or like to tinker with new software, stick to XP, otherwise you may like Vista for the way it organizes how you work.
I’ve been using Macs for 10 yrs. now at work, with XP at home. I’d never shell out for a personal Mac. At home, I’ve switched to Kubuntu Linux (with a 2nd XP hard drive for games). Again, I’d never shell out for a Mac.
I never said I was an ace at spelling. =o)
I went from windows 98SE to XP. I think XP will be the last microsoft operating system I ever use.
If I had duel processors and 4 gigs of ram, I should hope it would boot up and run fast. Sorry but the vast majority of us have 1 gig of ram and a single processor and Vista will barely run on that.
I love Vista. I'll never go back to ME, XP or any of the other ones. And "No", I don't know Bill Gates.
;-/
I bought a new laptop for my daughter and school. It came with Vista and of the 5 computers we have in our house. It is the only one trouble free - all other run XP and have a variety of problems.
If you get Vista pre-loaded and don’t have old equipment then your fine but what old equipment do most have a printer? With their price and toner, that is the first thing to go and get new.
I found XP doesn't even like to run on that.
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