Is Vista any good? The market has spoken...
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Chris, the thing the guys here like about the start menu is that you can just start typing and find the program, rather than having to navigate through 4-5 levels of menus. IMO, that's an improvement.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: The Virginia Tech Shootings, Guns, and Politics The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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That just proves that the market is stupid. People with an IQ below some threshold shouldn't be allowed to use computers, much less buy or decide what operating system it should run. Vista is unfinished crap - borderline beta quality! It's a bloody experiment in dodgy UI design!
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Hmm, I bet you use linux and firefox. Stop bashing and think again. Vista is stable, it has a good looking UI, maybe a bit overdone at some points but it works for most people. And as always, there are downsides in every product, same goes for Vista. :)
WM. What about weapons of mass-construction? "What? Its an Apple MacBook Pro. They are sexy!" - Paul Watson
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That just proves that the market is stupid. People with an IQ below some threshold shouldn't be allowed to use computers, much less buy or decide what operating system it should run. Vista is unfinished crap - borderline beta quality! It's a bloody experiment in dodgy UI design!
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
I have been using vista since beta one, and purchased ultimate the same week it was released and i have had no problems with vista, it has NEVER crashed, and is considerably faster than xp and everything seems to run faster even games run faster at higher graphics settings i dont know if this is due to me have a dual core machine and vista begin better programmed for dual core but its alot more stable and sercure than before and is still better than mac and linux by far for the general home user, and i cant wait till the end of the year for service pack one Lloyd
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Just to make a point or two ... POINT #1 Developers = Web_Programmers + DBA + Net_Programmers + App_Programmers + Game_Programers + ... etc Market = (10*Developers + 100000*Not_Developers); We_Say_Good_OS = Happy(Developers); If (Money != SalesTo(Developers)) { Money = SalesTo(Not_Developers); } If (Money == Good) { MS_Say_Good_OS = True; } else { PutMoreCrap = True; IsBeta = True; MS_Say_Good_OS = True; } POINT #2 I'm not changing to Vista yet. I deal with too many aspects of programming from web, net, db, apps, gui ... and i can't afford to fall into the pit against all known and unknown bugs out there. Vista is mostly a matter of visual preference for my clients and as a developer, i'm forced to create software that will run on a client machine (regardless of Windows version). As a developer however, it's my choice to work on a confortable and bug-free (if that's ever possible) enviroment and Vista are still miles away from that in both ease of use (and i mean for developers) and fast workflow. Vista-Team (i'm not blamming anyone) has focused too much on creating a visual impact on simple users, rather than providing a good OS for the devs. PS: Speaking purely as a Dev, i can only say that at this moment, the OS prompt seems more attactive (in terms of workflow and bug free enviroment) for my work than the entire Vista product series.
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I guess it only sells because it comes with new PC's.. i would never buy that just to upgrade. First thing i did was installing XP with dual boot so i can use both of them.. Guess wich one i use the most. :-) .. XP is a good product so why change. Further i needed XP to remove some Vista files from the harddrive until i found the real administrator account from Vista. Probably it will take a lot of time and frustrations the learn the new envirnoment, like any changes do. greetz. Kurt
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Judah Himango wrote:
the improved shell
You've got to be kidding me?? File copying is just a friggin nightmare if it's more than 10 files and/or more than 10 megabytes. Detail views are very stupid as there is no non-sensitive space except below the last line or right of the rightmost column. That means that if you want to select a bunch of files in the middle, you'll have to either: 1) become religious or 2) use keyboard 1) Sometimes it's possible to conjure up a selection rectangle. I have not yet figured out what god(s) I need to sacrifice a chicken for to make it happen. Try it... 2) Well, I like using my keyboard. But not all the time! Sometimes I use the keyboard, and sometimes I use the mouse (I do drag and drops occasionally). The point is though that I want to choose when. The view selector is utter crap. I think you're supposed to be able to grab the slider just by opening the views drop down menu. I manage to do that sometimes, and thus it's easy to change the view in one go. However, it doesn't always work. See 1) above. There are some features worth having in the shell (I like the grouping and stacking stuff), but that doesn't make it OK to screw up the basic day-to-day things one has come to rely on.
Judah Himango wrote:
excellent bread crumb navigation
Not half as good as the tree view which gives you a spatial sense of sorts. It's useless unless you use the mouse - if you open a drop down menu in one of the crumbs, you have to close the menu with Esc. Left or right won't work. Half finished, and quite superfluous.
Judah Himango wrote:
...what do you find dodgy?
The shell. The thing you actually use in the OS :) I suppose my real beef with Vista is explorer.exe.
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
I tend to agree that explorer is a serious pain when trying to sort out my videos, music, or any other BitTorrent downloads. From a dumb user point of view, most would have saved their files in the proper place to begin with and/or use photo software to organize their photos. Finally, as a programmer I spend most of my time using development tools of the trade for the task at hand. Microsoft could not have picked a better name than “explorer”. For the majority of people on this planet, Windows Vista is by far the best operating system available. Sure it is not perfect, but it will continue to be preferred until something better comes along. “Give a kid a hammer and the world becomes a nail.”
Dwayne J. Baldwin
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Judah Himango wrote:
the redesigned start menu
Personally I can't stand it - one of my pet peeves with Vista. FWIW I've gone back to XP SP2. I've been running Vista long enough to feel that I know enough about it so that I should be able to use it fluidly, but I find the entire UI is just harder to use. More clicks, more hunting, more have to be careful about selecting items and dropping them (seems to be hard to drop files into a folder without inadvertantly dropping it onto another file or subfolder), more squinting at window headers to read the title. And UAC? Insane. The final straw was probably me spending an evening trying to work out why an application was failing only to realise that with UAC disabled the app would not work. No error message, no crash. Just a silent failure. If you're going to let me turn off UAC then turn it off and trust me. Don't cripple the functionality. So - in order to trust the the apps I have will run I need to enable UAC. And that constant, never ending "Are you sure you want to run this app" series of dialogs just kills me.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
The UAC is a blessing in disguise when compared to the damaging effects of virus, adware, malware, spyware, trojans and other various techniques of software assaults on previous operating systems. "One should never trust when considering a seatbelt or a condom." "Security is inversely proportional to convenience." Have you ever had to fix a computer for a friend or family member? I rest my case.
Dwayne J. Baldwin
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It sounds like you're all complaining about trivial things. At least you get Vista to run for more than a few minutes at a time without some sort of error occurring. Some of you even talk about your apps being slower than when they were on XP. Consider yourselves fortunate that you get Vista to run / install apps. That's one up on me. I'm considering on requesting a percentage of the profits of Vista sales after they release SP1 as I've single handedly contributed several hundred error reports to MS (obviuosly when the Error Reporting tool is reporting to me that it too has encountered an error and needs to close). I'd get the latest updates, but that too has decided to stop working. Still, I've got a pretty coaster for my coffee now! Ian Partridge
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Judah Himango wrote:
the improved shell
You've got to be kidding me?? File copying is just a friggin nightmare if it's more than 10 files and/or more than 10 megabytes. Detail views are very stupid as there is no non-sensitive space except below the last line or right of the rightmost column. That means that if you want to select a bunch of files in the middle, you'll have to either: 1) become religious or 2) use keyboard 1) Sometimes it's possible to conjure up a selection rectangle. I have not yet figured out what god(s) I need to sacrifice a chicken for to make it happen. Try it... 2) Well, I like using my keyboard. But not all the time! Sometimes I use the keyboard, and sometimes I use the mouse (I do drag and drops occasionally). The point is though that I want to choose when. The view selector is utter crap. I think you're supposed to be able to grab the slider just by opening the views drop down menu. I manage to do that sometimes, and thus it's easy to change the view in one go. However, it doesn't always work. See 1) above. There are some features worth having in the shell (I like the grouping and stacking stuff), but that doesn't make it OK to screw up the basic day-to-day things one has come to rely on.
Judah Himango wrote:
excellent bread crumb navigation
Not half as good as the tree view which gives you a spatial sense of sorts. It's useless unless you use the mouse - if you open a drop down menu in one of the crumbs, you have to close the menu with Esc. Left or right won't work. Half finished, and quite superfluous.
Judah Himango wrote:
...what do you find dodgy?
The shell. The thing you actually use in the OS :) I suppose my real beef with Vista is explorer.exe.
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
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I've had problems when trying to copy and paste files from another box using a shared drive to a Vista box. It won't let me copy the files to the harddrive directly. I have to first copy them to my desktop then it'll let me copy them to the harddrive. UAC just bites! Virtualization blows. Drop down menus in apps that use a manifest with Aero turned on have been buggy on my Vista box. Everything seems blurry, even with antialiasing turned off. My eyes hurt. Custom MSI's don't work correctly. Even with Aero turned off, my apps are noticeably slower than on XP or 2000. Lots of odd behavior and slow refresh issues with apps that I didn't notice when run on earlier operating systems. I can see things redrawn before the next z-order item covers it up. Docking control bars act strangely as they transition from docked to being dragged. I'm guessing the transition effects are interfering. The frickin' automatic horizontal scrolling in tree views is about to push me over the edge. It's by design but it's ticking me off just the same as a bug would. Too much fluff and WAY too much safety adversely affected too many things. It ain't worth the grief it causes.
slower than xp? poor baby use a better comp on core 2 except or app who dont like aero ( like old mud client ), it is as fast as XP problems with UAC ? well i got it disable after 5 mins the 1st day i used vista, now if i do something stupid i ll lose data, but whatever i m a computer scientist i used to know what i do
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slower than xp? poor baby use a better comp on core 2 except or app who dont like aero ( like old mud client ), it is as fast as XP problems with UAC ? well i got it disable after 5 mins the 1st day i used vista, now if i do something stupid i ll lose data, but whatever i m a computer scientist i used to know what i do
bejito wrote:
slower than xp? poor baby use a better comp on core 2 except or app who dont like aero ( like old mud client ), it is as fast as XP
I just upgraded from XP SP2 on a 1.86GHz centrino (2 years old) to a T7200 2.whatever GHz C2D, and I'd have to say vista is much slower than I expected. The computer has an nVidia go7700 dedicated graphics card, and while you could say I could turn aero off and it would be faster, I shouldn't have to turn aero off... The computer has the hardware and should have enough grunt to run things, and run them faster than my old laptop ran XP...
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bejito wrote:
slower than xp? poor baby use a better comp on core 2 except or app who dont like aero ( like old mud client ), it is as fast as XP
I just upgraded from XP SP2 on a 1.86GHz centrino (2 years old) to a T7200 2.whatever GHz C2D, and I'd have to say vista is much slower than I expected. The computer has an nVidia go7700 dedicated graphics card, and while you could say I could turn aero off and it would be faster, I shouldn't have to turn aero off... The computer has the hardware and should have enough grunt to run things, and run them faster than my old laptop ran XP...
well i m sorry that is doesnt work good for you, on my side i m running a core 2 6300 + 3Gb DDR2 667 dual channel (@ 533Mhz) + radeon X1600 pro and i have no problems at all, now perhaps you video drivers sux, the issue of drivers has already been posted on every forum talking about vista all arround the web, an other things with vista is that that it prefech a lot in memory at the start of the computer, it also, run defrag and so in background, so mostly when you just installed vista, first few days are the slowest of all
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Personally I like it. It did take me a couple of weeks to tweak and configure things, but overall I like it now better than XP. Demographically, I am a 46 year old Dev. So even an old guy can learn new things. I cant really say it runs any slower as I have 2 identical dev boxes, one running XP and one running Vista Premium, both Core 2 duo 6600's with Radion X1650s. I cant speak for games but dev and bus apps run well. On another note, I had to start using voice recognition as we are developing software that will employ it. I was frustrated by it at first, but... just like typing, got better at the commands and as the computer trained to my voice, I find I now talk as much as type. It did take about 3 weeks of actually trying to use voice to achieve this. but it is a new skill. I dont use voice with the XP machine as it is not as mature.
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Chris, the thing the guys here like about the start menu is that you can just start typing and find the program, rather than having to navigate through 4-5 levels of menus. IMO, that's an improvement.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: The Virginia Tech Shootings, Guns, and Politics The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
I've got rather mixed feelings on the vista start menu. IF i know the app name the search box is great. If I don't the short treeview the requires a click to open each folder works much worse than the XP or 2k style menus that will show everything even if it needs multiple columns and opens folders with a brief hover. You can switch to a classic 2k style start menu but not the XP one.
-- CleaKO The sad part about this instance is that none of the users ever said anything [about the problem]. Pete O`Hanlon Doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about users?
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I do not agree at all! I have used Vista 64 since RC2 was released and have found it a much more complete version of Windows than any other version. The File Explorer is on of my favorite enhancements as it is much more flexible, can easily copy files without stopping when you get an error (those open or in use files) and is a much cleaner design. The Favorite Links area is beyond handy! At the beginning I had issues with the way the path was displayed until I got use to it and found how handy it is to navigate without having to play with the folder tree. My only complaint is that issue with it deciding that all my files are photos and showing columns such as Date Taken, Tags, Rating.. The new feature on the start menu to easily find programs is another feature, although small, is a major time saver. The UAC is a problem for me and I shut it off long ago. For my wife though and any novice users out there I would leave it on as it will protecting them from some viruses and trojan software. Some say they have had issues copying files, I have not run into that problem. I have copied large size and large volumes of files and never had any issues other than the lag waiting for it to do its calculations. Overall, I am more than happy with Vista and obviously so are a lot of others as on my websites Vista is now up to 7.67% of my vistors. While not a huge number, it is more than those running all other versions of Windows other than XP, combined. Not bad for being out for only a couple months!
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: OpenID - C# project! Latest Tech Blog Post: Want to test Joost (video on demand) - I have invites!
Rocky Moore wrote:
My only complaint is that issue with it deciding that all my files are photos and showing columns such as Date Taken, Tags, Rating..
This is an XP misfeature. It also does it with music files. I really hate it there since I often want to sort my MP3 folder by date to find the newest files to backup, but no, I can only have music related options and I haven't been able to google up a registry hack to turn the feature off like I eventually ended up doing with things like autoplay.
-- CleaKO The sad part about this instance is that none of the users ever said anything [about the problem]. Pete O`Hanlon Doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about users?
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...and won't leave XP at all
Chris Maunder wrote:
And UAC? Insane. The final straw was probably me spending an evening trying to work out why an application was failing only to realise that with UAC disabled the app would not work. No error message, no crash. Just a silent failure. If you're going to let me turn off UAC then turn it off and trust me. Don't cripple the functionality. So - in order to trust the the apps I have will run I need to enable UAC. And that constant, never ending "Are you sure you want to run this app" series of dialogs just kills me.
I will second that , i also tried Windows XP recently and was kinda liked it :) i hope MS comes with some solution for UAC thing and fast
Omit Needless Words - Strunk, William, Jr.
Vista? Touch Screen Explorer with Pen Flicks here
Quartz. wrote:
hope MS comes with some solution for UAC thing and fast
if you don't want it, turn it off.
-- CleaKO The sad part about this instance is that none of the users ever said anything [about the problem]. Pete O`Hanlon Doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about users?
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I guess it only sells because it comes with new PC's.. i would never buy that just to upgrade. First thing i did was installing XP with dual boot so i can use both of them.. Guess wich one i use the most. :-) .. XP is a good product so why change. Further i needed XP to remove some Vista files from the harddrive until i found the real administrator account from Vista. Probably it will take a lot of time and frustrations the learn the new envirnoment, like any changes do. greetz. Kurt
topcatalpha wrote:
I guess it only sells because it comes with new PC's.. i would never buy that just to upgrade.
OEM sales switching from XP to Vista wouldn't give a 66% spike in income, and neither is the 1 or 2% of the userbase who're technically competent enough to install an OS on bare hardware even if we were all paranoid enough to be stockpiling copies of XP against MS taking it off the market. Given the small size of the XPpro to VistaBusiness pricegap for machines you're not planning to build for more than a year or two you'd do better to put the money in a high yield savings account and do a downgrade when you do build your machine.
-- CleaKO The sad part about this instance is that none of the users ever said anything [about the problem]. Pete O`Hanlon Doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about users?
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I am not sure if the question about Vista should be in reference to its quality or how many may be purchasing it but rather how much is it really needed. I have been in the field clos eto 35 years. I have seen just about every imaginable fad and whim come and go along with the corresponding software tools. Most software today that the newer generation of technicians appears to promote is highly redundant and far less efficient than the software concepts which became the initial tools. Yes, Vista may be the new OS from Microsoft but do we really need a new OS? I can find little to complain about when it comes to Windows-2000 which close to 47% of the Windows community still uses. Less to complain about with WIndows-XP\SP2. DO we really need an OS that is primarily supposed to support a utilitarian base for business and other institutions that must perform similar functions. I think not. Though I agree with a technician who wrote a number of months ago that many will buy Vista simply becaus ethey are ignorant, lazy, or just want the latest glitz on their machines. However, there is absolutelky nothing you can do with Vista that you can'ta lready do with either of the mention Windows OSs or Linux or even UNIX. There is nothing about Vista that makes it unique except maybe for its gaming capabilities. And for that we should have been given an add-in module for the graphics and not an entirely new OS of which many such modules have been developed as third-party tools such as XNA Express. Vista and Office 2007 are simply tools to maintain Microsoft's dominance in the market place, not something that can provide unique computer experiences, most of which are highly overrated and nothing more than marketing hype. You want a unique compuer experience, trust me you are not going to find it in anything commercially available today. For that you will have to join the US Military and get to work with their many simulation tools. Vista, like so much else today, is a solution for a problem that has already been resolved. Had Microsoft made extensiblet OSs in the past, Windows would have been as it should have been, simply a standard by which we all work by much like UNIX has been a standard on the larger machines that support it. However, instead we get constant redundancy in this case because Microsoft can't cut its own umbilical chord to its current "gravy train". And for that reason much of the top technical talent is leaving the company... In 35 years or so, many of you will be saying and
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Chris, the thing the guys here like about the start menu is that you can just start typing and find the program, rather than having to navigate through 4-5 levels of menus. IMO, that's an improvement.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: The Virginia Tech Shootings, Guns, and Politics The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
The search is great - a nice little addition. But the menu itself is a bad step backwards. What fundamentally annoys me is that there are tons of small (and big!) things that really make Vista great, but that is let down by so many niggling unnecessary and annoying things in the UI.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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I am not sure if the question about Vista should be in reference to its quality or how many may be purchasing it but rather how much is it really needed. I have been in the field clos eto 35 years. I have seen just about every imaginable fad and whim come and go along with the corresponding software tools. Most software today that the newer generation of technicians appears to promote is highly redundant and far less efficient than the software concepts which became the initial tools. Yes, Vista may be the new OS from Microsoft but do we really need a new OS? I can find little to complain about when it comes to Windows-2000 which close to 47% of the Windows community still uses. Less to complain about with WIndows-XP\SP2. DO we really need an OS that is primarily supposed to support a utilitarian base for business and other institutions that must perform similar functions. I think not. Though I agree with a technician who wrote a number of months ago that many will buy Vista simply becaus ethey are ignorant, lazy, or just want the latest glitz on their machines. However, there is absolutelky nothing you can do with Vista that you can'ta lready do with either of the mention Windows OSs or Linux or even UNIX. There is nothing about Vista that makes it unique except maybe for its gaming capabilities. And for that we should have been given an add-in module for the graphics and not an entirely new OS of which many such modules have been developed as third-party tools such as XNA Express. Vista and Office 2007 are simply tools to maintain Microsoft's dominance in the market place, not something that can provide unique computer experiences, most of which are highly overrated and nothing more than marketing hype. You want a unique compuer experience, trust me you are not going to find it in anything commercially available today. For that you will have to join the US Military and get to work with their many simulation tools. Vista, like so much else today, is a solution for a problem that has already been resolved. Had Microsoft made extensiblet OSs in the past, Windows would have been as it should have been, simply a standard by which we all work by much like UNIX has been a standard on the larger machines that support it. However, instead we get constant redundancy in this case because Microsoft can't cut its own umbilical chord to its current "gravy train". And for that reason much of the top technical talent is leaving the company... In 35 years or so, many of you will be saying and
Well this being a developer board all your points are a little beside the point. As a user I was happy with CPM when it was the os of choice for a pc back in the day. As a developer I find it amusing to see a lot of luddite developers on this board getting cranky about any new technology. It's not our job to judge os's it's our job to write the software that runs on the os that our end users are using. Increasingly that is becoming Vista; bitch all you want about it but your app better play nicely with it if you have any sort of average target demographic. I'm not sure why so many older developers are so resistant to change. I've been developing for 23+ years now, not as long as some I'm sure, but I've never felt like stopping at any point and saying "this is all I want or need to know". I got into this like of work because I *like* change, it boggles the mind that anyone can be a developer with any other kind of attitude.
"110%" - it's the new 70%