Vista == Mojave == Wow?

[ShaidarHaran]

Even $400 laptops these day ship with dual cores and 2GB of memory.

I wouldn't go quite that far... Certainly such deals can be found, but I wouldn't say the average $399 laptop includes the hardware you've mentioned, at least not at the local b&m. Also, 18 months on from the release of Vista, if we're only just now getting to the point where most systems that come pre-loaded with Vista are capable of running it "adequately", wouldn't you say that's a big problem? I'm not saying MS is to blame here, either. OEMs bowing to the wishes of cheap customers would be the prime culprit.

Discrete graphics really isn't a big deal either, experience with Aero is about equal even on a Intel X3100.

I've seen Vista choke on similar systems to what you described, with both AMD and NV IGPs. Let alone all the POS single-core 1GB RAM bargain-basement laptops OEMs were trying to pawn off in the early days after Vista's release.

I've heard all the same about XP, I would go on to guess you have as well.

Sure, 6-7 years ago when XP was still shiny and new

You know why Vista isn't as "user friendly" as XP? Because they already know all the ins and outs of XP, they've been using it for years now.

Certainly there is truth in this, but I for one find all the extra steps necessary to perform the simplest tasks (that MS added in for our convenience) to be anything but user-friendly. Case-in-point: it used to take all of 2 clicks to access the time/date functionality, and changing either was a simple matter of selecting the appropriate choice from there. How many does it take in Vista now? 47? (I know, I'm exaggerating, but I distinctly recall this process having been ridiculously over-complicated). Not to mention UAC. Yeah, I know it can be turned off, but the average user doesn't. All they know is this new computer they have makes them paranoid because it warns them of a security risk every time they try to perform any simple task.

This might be a holy shit moment for you...

Lol, come now

but people tend to know something they've used for years better than something they haven't. It's like Office 2007 compared to earlier versions. 2007 is WORLDS better, if you were to learn both at the same time you'd fine 2007 incredibly better from a user perspective. But people already know the old system so of course they're going to complain "OH GOD WHY MUST I LEARN SOMETHING NEW." Maybe that's it. Microsoft should never release a new OS. Shit is just to hard to learn.

Honestly I wish they would just start over. But they can't, kind of sad. Windows market ownage will likely cause it's own shrink.

No argument here. But again, MS made anti-user-friendly design decisions with Vista. Renaming half the stuff in the control panel, for one.

 

[aaaaa00]

Case-in-point: it used to take all of 2 clicks to access the time/date functionality, and changing either was a simple matter of selecting the appropriate choice from there. How many does it take in Vista now? 47? (I know, I'm exaggerating, but I distinctly recall this process having been ridiculously over-complicated).

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Done

BTW, the reason it asks for admin priv is that accurate time is crucial to crypto security, so it has to be a privileged operation to change it.

 

[Davros]

my microsoft forcefeedback wheel doesnt have a vista driver and that to me is a deal breaker
ps: have you noticed for a software company ms make some mighty fine hardware

 

[Skrying]

I wouldn't go quite that far... Certainly such deals can be found, but I wouldn't say the average $399 laptop includes the hardware you've mentioned, at least not at the local b&m. Also, 18 months on from the release of Vista, if we're only just now getting to the point where most systems that come pre-loaded with Vista are capable of running it "adequately", wouldn't you say that's a big problem? I'm not saying MS is to blame here, either. OEMs bowing to the wishes of cheap customers would be the prime culprit.

I'm sorry, $500 laptops. The point still stands that laptops and certainly desktops can be had for very low prices that run Vista just fine. You can disagree all you want but I've used systems with integrated graphics that were just fine. I've used systems with single core processors that were just fine. Were they slower than XP? If single core yes when using a single application but faster when using multiple. Again one of the great advantages with Vista is how well it handles multiple applications compared to XP.

Sure, 6-7 years ago when XP was still shiny and new

Hear it as much now as then.

Certainly there is truth in this, but I for one find all the extra steps necessary to perform the simplest tasks (that MS added in for our convenience) to be anything but user-friendly. Case-in-point: it used to take all of 2 clicks to access the time/date functionality, and changing either was a simple matter of selecting the appropriate choice from there. How many does it take in Vista now? 47? (I know, I'm exaggerating, but I distinctly recall this process having been ridiculously over-complicated). Not to mention UAC. Yeah, I know it can be turned off, but the average user doesn't. All they know is this new computer they have makes them paranoid because it warns them of a security risk every time they try to perform any simple task.

You've already been shown how ridiculously wrong you were with this one. You sure you weren't one of the people shown Mojave?

No argument here. But again, MS made anti-user-friendly design decisions with Vista. Renaming half the stuff in the control panel, for one.

Which took all of a week to learn. Are you really that lazy? Let me guess you also freaked out because the music folder was named "Music" and not "My Music"? Whoa holy shit I just saw this option on the left side of the Control Panel that says "Classic View." Freaking radical idea there Microsoft! You likely also shit bricks over the default button in the Start Menu being sleep? Again, things that take no time to learn and over time end up being better. Do you not support change? I've learned it takes some to make proper advancements.

 

[Zengar]

I woild put it this way: with reasonable hardware Vista is IMHO the best client OS MS ever made (ad surely the best from MS I worked with); not for eprformance reasons, but for usability ones. The UI is very convenient, the search function is extremely useful, the system menus are much better then in XP, the stability is on pair with MacOS (with XP I had to reformat each 6 month) and they finally made a reasonable directory structure.

Now, donwsides (I will be drawing some comparisons to MacOS, as it is my system of choice and the most obvious alternative to Vista):

- Vista is really a underoptimized. The core eats lots of memory and resourses (and contrary to popular believes this are not really released when neaded by the allpication). That won't be a problem (for example, the Leopard core takes about 250Mb RAM), but the resource management on Vista seems a bit lacking: their realocation is very painful, resulting in stalls and extensive swapping. On my Macbook laptop (MacOS) I usualy have 20+ applications open (which together comit about 5 GB of memory) and can switch between them almost instantly, as the swapping is performed very efficiently (usually I don't even notice that something is being swapped at all). It seems to me that Unix still does better job at multitasking then Windows

- Some system processes (like defender and indexing) are really performance killers. My Vista machine used to have very high HDD usage for no apparent reason.

- The DWM is not as performant as it should be, but MS will surely improve it in future releases.

- The whole "incompartability" issue... a great deal of it comes from the fact that most windows programs are just poorly written. They write where they should write to (the Applications folder, for instance), they use undocumented OS features they shouldn't use and don't use ones they should use.

- I like the UAC and I really wonder how it works (must be a nice peace of engineering, as it seems to detect wheather the app needs admin right rior to actually running it)! Still, I admit it is very annoying at times. The only reason I can think of is that access right in windows are still not very developed (or the applications ignore them altogether) so that UAC does more (and appears more often) then it should.

- Again, the included applications. The MacOS included apps are just useful. I use Mail as my main mail client and it is teriffic. Same for iCal and AddressBook. The system has support for various file formats built in (PDF, DOC etc.), system-wide spell and grammar checker (each text field gets it automatically)– all in all, it has lots of utilities that can be used and make life easier. Vista still comes with the old "basic" utilities which are of no real use (but hey, Notepad can open unicode now

- All in all, I have a feeling that MS put way to much resources into the "fancy" part, like the absolute useless voice recognition, instead of improving more essential features.

 

[Skrying]

Vista has Windows Mail (never used it) and Calendar (again, never used it). While I'm not sure of how good they are, they are there if someone wished to use them. Also you must keep in mind how much trouble Microsoft would get in if they included programs that did these things by default.

 

[PARANOiA]

Vista certainly has its perception problems. My brother's trying to convince me to get XP reinstalled on his new PC, meaning I have to go through a PITA process of trying to get the XP installer to detect his SATA-only HDD on a Via-based board. And when I asked him why not try Vista instead, he's said "because I heard bad things about it like some hardware doesn't just work as easily as it does on XP" without a hint of irony.

In my mind, MS have had only one really bad OS, and that was Win ME (though I never tried "Bob").

The driver compatabilities I've had to deal with are 64-bit only headaches like my Canon scanner. I'm annoyed Canon (no small company by any means) things models 3-4 years old aren't worth getting working in Vista.

However, anyone who has used 64-bit Vista with 4gb RAM will tell you it beats the pants off both 32- and 64-bit XP variants, purely due to the way it will actually use all of your resources. Not just detecting your RAM, but actually using it in ways that speeds up your system.

The same XP -> Vista complaints out today will be heard from the same people on the "change-resister" side of the technology curve when the mass market moves from Vista to whatever is next *shrug* it's just the way these things fall. People don't like change, and people certainly love to hate Microsoft.

 

[Zengar]

Vista has Windows Mail (never used it) and Calendar (again, never used it). While I'm not sure of how good they are, they are there if someone wished to use them. Also you must keep in mind how much trouble Microsoft would get in if they included programs that did these things by default.

The problem is not including the programs, but integrating the programs. This is the real problem with MS: they include(d) the programs in their OS that are so deeply integrated in the system that the competitor's products don't stay a chance. I see no problems with software inclusion, but this software should be user-neutral: the user has to be able to deinstall it or install something else without any problems.

 

[I.S.T.]

Vista certainly has its perception problems. My brother's trying to convince me to get XP reinstalled on his new PC, meaning I have to go through a PITA process of trying to get the XP installer to detect his SATA-only HDD on a Via-based board. And when I asked him why not try Vista instead, he's said "because I heard bad things about it like some hardware doesn't just work as easily as it does on XP" without a hint of irony.

In my mind, MS have had only one really bad OS, and that was Win ME (though I never tried "Bob").

The driver compatabilities I've had to deal with are 64-bit only headaches like my Canon scanner. I'm annoyed Canon (no small company by any means) things models 3-4 years old aren't worth getting working in Vista.

However, anyone who has used 64-bit Vista with 4gb RAM will tell you it beats the pants off both 32- and 64-bit XP variants, purely due to the way it will actually use all of your resources. Not just detecting your RAM, but actually using it in ways that speeds up your system.

The same XP -> Vista complaints out today will be heard from the same people on the "change-resister" side of the technology curve when the mass market moves from Vista to whatever is next *shrug* it's just the way these things fall. People don't like change, and people certainly love to hate Microsoft.

I really do agree with this. I recall people saying they would never install XP back in 2002, preferring to keep 98se or ME until MS' next OS.

98se and ME.

It confuses me. It really does.

 

[suryad]

I dont think that change-resister applies to everyone though. There are genuine gripes with using Vista. Just because some people adapt to it because its shiny and new does not mean it is without faults. I have still not been shown a single thing about Vista that will prompt me to upgrade. Neither have I seen an explanation why it is so resource hungry. If someone says its using the RAM as a cache I will say "sure so does linux but it does a much better job at it". And even with all that caching etc it still is sluggish, one must really wonder. I had Indexing Service turned off the shadow copy thing turned off and it was still ridiculously annoying! Also I dont think that just because memory and hard drive and processing power is so cheap these days is a good excuse to release subpar software. Isnt that just sloppiness on the part of the developers? What happened to tight lightweight and fast programs and OSes? That is the very reason why I am using XP x64.

I got all the drivers for my rig. With Sp2 slipstreamed and after nLiting, my CD image was a mere 234 MB! And after installing it took up less than 2 GB hdd space. It boots up in 20 seconds, everything is superfast, multitasks like a badass, please explain the reason for me to move to Vista when it feels like someone just slowed down my whole computer and experience by half!

 

[Davros]

you think vista's slow you should see it on a pc with 512mb
but dont let it be said i dont give credit where it's due
it was quicker than xp on a 300mhz celeron with 64mb

 

[suryad]

In my mind, IMO, XP on the hardware it was on at that time...I am talking about a level here...or disparity...its not the same as Vista with current hardware. I dont know if that made sense. Like the ratio of then hardware with XP vs the ratio of current hardware with Vista is not the same...the level has dropped. In other words I dont recall XP being this bad It was security nightmare is all I remmber it to be and drivers would BSOD it like there was no tomorrow. But not bloat/sluggishness as much as Vista.

 

[Sxotty]

my microsoft forcefeedback wheel doesnt have a vista driver and that to me is a deal breaker
ps: have you noticed for a software company ms make some mighty fine hardware

Do they build/design their hardware or someone else. And yes I have noticed.

BTW try Vlite if you like nlite... I haven't screwed with it yet as vista runs perfectly well on my laptop and desktop.

 

[suryad]

How much were you able to shrink the install image by? I read some of these guys had Vista fitting on a CD! But that was till before SP1 got slipstreamed.

 

[Skrying]

The problem is not including the programs, but integrating the programs. This is the real problem with MS: they include(d) the programs in their OS that are so deeply integrated in the system that the competitor's products don't stay a chance. I see no problems with software inclusion, but this software should be user-neutral: the user has to be able to deinstall it or install something else without any problems.

Oh noes someone is integrating their own programs into their own OS! Microsoft shouldn't have to make Windows neutral just because it has the vast majority of the market share. With that said you can easily remove Mail, Calendar, and all the other programs. You can also easily just install your own third party program and assign it the default for opening certain files. If what you said had any truth then iTunes wouldn't be popular, Winamp would have never existed, I wouldn't be using Foobar right now, Pidgin wouldn't be running right now, and Firefox wouldn't be eating away market share every day.

In my mind, IMO, XP on the hardware it was on at that time...I am talking about a level here...or disparity...its not the same as Vista with current hardware. I dont know if that made sense. Like the ratio of then hardware with XP vs the ratio of current hardware with Vista is not the same...the level has dropped. In other words I dont recall XP being this bad It was security nightmare is all I remmber it to be and drivers would BSOD it like there was no tomorrow. But not bloat/sluggishness as much as Vista.

XP was just as bad if not worse. The similarities between the two are pretty funny really.

 

[Davros]

iirc when xp came out i had a 1.2Tbird + 512mb ram and it ran fine
infact it ran so well that when i upgraded to a 3ghz p4 i noticed no difference in speed

 

[BRiT]

Would you say that's because XP did not make use of the resources properly? (IE: No performance increase with substantial hardware upgrade)

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9998336-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1001_3-0-5

Wondering if anyone else had heard about this. I want to be wowed to be honest by MS but they have failed me so far.

You know the way you can take a crappy 90 minute movie, pull out all the best bits, and make a really exciting and great looking 60 second trailer?

Showing the most impressive bits in a demo is different from living with something from day to day - especially after you've shelled out a lot of money for it.

 

[suryad]

You know the way you can take a crappy 90 minute movie, pull out all the best bits, and make a really exciting and great looking 60 second trailer?

Showing the most impressive bits in a demo is different from living with something from day to day - especially after you've shelled out a lot of money for it.

Hehe you got a good point there!

And regarding BRiTs comment, my experience was similar with Davros's. I dont recall ever putting that much load on XP the way I do nowadays with all the JAva development and games. But XP definitely performed faster on faster hardware so there was a performance increase when I went from the Thunderbird to a P4 3.4 ghz.

 

[Snyder]

Two things they should have improved with vista (to be honest, they should've improved it with Win2k already): Notepad and Paint. I mean - come on! Is no one at microsoft embarrassed about those two...ahem, "pieces of software"?