Windows Vista-- will it suck?

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

And if so, why?

(Not an incitement to a Mac vs PC flamewar. Suffice it to say that I will not buy a Mac for a variety of reasons!)

[Bonehelm]

What do you mean "will it"? It's out for a couple months already. And no it does NOT suck, it is just relatively system-resource-demanding comparing to previous installments of the OS. It has many enhanced security features which makes XP a safer working environment (Supposedly, anyway). People say Vista is bad because it has so many errors and holes and whatnot, but don't forget it's a new OS. Give it time, Microsoft can and will fix the problems.

And most of all, it looks gooooooooooooooooooood. 

[cx]

I have Vista, and I like it a lot.

[orbital]

I recently bought a laptop with Vista pre-installed. It looks OK, but it is a true memory hog.  And my laptop being near the lower end of the laptop spectrum, I had to turn off all those nice visuals.

They took the security issue a bit too far though  Vista asks for your permission for everything, which is a little annoying. It even asks my permission for windows installed features 

[Holden]

When I was in NZ on vacation recently I used a PC that had Vista. This is on cable whereas I'm only on DSL and their PC was a lot slower than mine on the internet. More importantly, their cable connection appeared to have slowed from when they were on XP. Personally, I'd wait until all the bugs are out. I don't see anything radically new with Vista and my main issue is speed and functionality - XP wins in both cases AFAIC

[Mark]

I believe that Vista has a few issues with older peripherals. That's what users I know keep telling me. Think I'll wait a year or two before I upgrade.

[Rod Corkin]

And if so, why?

(Not an incitement to a Mac vs PC flamewar. Suffice it to say that I will not buy a Mac for a variety of reasons!)

I worked in an totally Apple Mac equipped office for 7 years. Suffice to say Hell will freeze over before I ever buy an Apple product for myself.

[Mark]

I worked in an totally Apple Mac equipped office for 7 years. Suffice to say Hell will freeze over before I ever buy an Apple product for myself.

I work in an industry dominated by Mac ... but no, I shan't rant.

[The Mad Hatter]

I recently bought a laptop with Vista pre-installed. It looks OK, but it is a true memory hog.  And my laptop being near the lower end of the laptop spectrum, I had to turn off all those nice visuals.

They took the security issue a bit too far though  Vista asks for your permission for everything, which is a little annoying. It even asks my permission for windows installed features 

Well, frankly it's about time. One of the biggest security holes pre-Vista was that some executable or virus would tell your computer it was working for Internet Exploder Explorer, and download itself through that.

Hm...I don't like a lot of the software restrictions on Vista, might go with Mac or Ubuntu next time round. That said, I'm on Win2k now, and haven't had any problems yet...

[Tancata]

It's resource-intensive but fine - just wait for a service pack or two before upgrading. Actually, maybe wait until you get a new machine. You will see performance loss in everything.

[The Mad Hatter]

Or, to put it another way...http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2365

[Choo Choo]

As a business user I find it sucks big time.  This is because I am used to configuring all aspects of machines myself, and I resent the unreasonable amount of hacking you have to do, for example, to enable and password-protect the Administrator account.

I can understand that a "Home" version of an OS might benefit from a draconian security policy which, by default, prevents things from changing your computer unless explicitly authorised.  I do think it's unreasonable that a "Business" version should do the same.  We are not children.  All our PCs operate in a tightly controlled environment already, with policies and after-market products to control these things as we want them to work, not as Microsoft decrees they should work.

[paul]

Of course it does. Would you expect anything different from a Microsoft OS?

[JoshLilly]

An operating system is a platform from which to launch applications. It should use as little system resources as possible and save them for those applications. Microsoft is a joke. They're that massive, with untold piles of money, and they continually fail to come out with stable, sensible software. What gives? How can people who do OpenSource stuff for free come out with better things time after time??

I think Vista is an abysmal failure. The only "operating system" (so-called) they have made that I would say is probably worse would be the disaster that was WindowsMe.

The whole deal with the widespread dominance of Microsoft junk remains a baffling mystery to me. Their stuff is so popular that I wish it was good, then at least there would be some explanation as to why so many people use buggy, resource-wasting crap on such a wide scale. I look at free stuff that beats their output on every test and trial, and just can't comprehend why people would pay money for something that's worse on every count. What gives?

[orbital]

I can understand that a "Home" version of an OS might benefit from a draconian security policy which, by default, prevents things from changing your computer unless explicitly authorised.  I do think it's unreasonable that a "Business" version should do the same.  We are not children.  All our PCs operate in a tightly controlled environment already, with policies and after-market products to control these things as we want them to work, not as Microsoft decrees they should work.

Well, for example Photoshop 9 (or later) will not work on Vista unless you turn the UAC function off. Even though I am a full admin on the computer, Adobe message at the program startup says "You are not logged in as an administrator". So in order to execute Adove Suite products, you will have to turn off the function as far as I can tell.

I wish I could down(up?)grade to XP but I don't have the software discs. My desktop which came with XP did not have an XP disc included. It was also preinstalled with the recovery system partitioned in the hard drive 

[JoshLilly]

There are some ways around that annoying stuff. Have you tried TweakVI? There's a free version of that which will kill many of the annoying confirmation requirements for everything you touch. The paid version has even more features.

http://www.totalidea.com/content/tweakvi/tweakvi-index.html

Worth a try. I can't imagine Vista at all without it now. I was issued a laptop with that on it (not by my choice!), and had to put that on there. It makes it much less aggravating. I only use the free version and it helps a ton.

[Choo Choo]

Even though I am a full admin on the computer, Adobe message at the program startup says "You are not logged in as an administrator".

This is precisely the point I was alluding to earlier.  No doubt you set yourself up as an "administrator" when you first installed, or logged in to, Vista.  However this does not make you an "Administrator" as this was understood in previous releases of Windows.  In fact it makes you what used to be called a "Standard User".  The real Administrator account does exist but is disabled by default, so you don't have the option to log in under that account unless you hack the setup.  And when you do, you find that - get this - the Administrator account is not password protected - so your PC is now wide open to anybody who tries logging in as Administrator.  The only way around this that I found is a registry hack.  Some security system, huh?

[orbital]

There are some ways around that annoying stuff. Have you tried TweakVI? There's a free version of that which will kill many of the annoying confirmation requirements for everything you touch. The paid version has even more features.

http://www.totalidea.com/content/tweakvi/tweakvi-index.html

Worth a try. I can't imagine Vista at all without it now. I was issued a laptop with that on it (not by my choice!), and had to put that on there. It makes it much less aggravating. I only use the free version and it helps a ton.

Thanks a lot Josh, I'll try that as soon as I get home.

This is precisely the point I was alluding to earlier.  No doubt you set yourself up as an "administrator" when you first installed, or logged in to, Vista.  However this does not make you an "Administrator" as this was understood in previous releases of Windows.  In fact it makes you what used to be called a "Standard User".  The real Administrator account does exist but is disabled by default, so you don't have the option to log in under that account unless you hack the setup.  And when you do, you find that - get this - the Administrator account is not password protected - so your PC is now wide open to anybody who tries logging in as Administrator.  The only way around this that I found is a registry hack.  Some security system, huh?

I disabled it (UAC)for now. Hopefully, the network/firewall  I set up is secure enough   

[The Mad Hatter]

An operating system is a platform from which to launch applications. It should use as little system resources as possible and save them for those applications. Microsoft is a joke. They're that massive, with untold piles of money, and they continually fail to come out with stable, sensible software. What gives? How can people who do OpenSource stuff for free come out with better things time after time??

I think Vista is an abysmal failure. The only "operating system" (so-called) they have made that I would say is probably worse would be the disaster that was WindowsMe.

The whole deal with the widespread dominance of Microsoft junk remains a baffling mystery to me. Their stuff is so popular that I wish it was good, then at least there would be some explanation as to why so many people use buggy, resource-wasting crap on such a wide scale. I look at free stuff that beats their output on every test and trial, and just can't comprehend why people would pay money for something that's worse on every count. What gives?

Simply, people don't know that there's an alternative. Apple are finally getting a slight foothold in the market, thanks oddly to the iPod, and virtually no-one even knows about Linux et al. because, firstly, they're not advertised, and secondly, they're not packaged with every PC. I've actually got a feeling that a lot of people think that Microsoft are the only Operating System available.

[Bonehelm]

Of course it does. Would you expect anything different from a Microsoft OS?

That's a bit absurd...last time I checked the Windows OS is what 90% of the business world is using..