For the sake of all

I just ordered new high end workstation parts including a Quad Core processor. XP was clear Microsoft choice. Heck in value alone its worth it. The OEM copy of Win XP pro was only US $140. Its fully functional, compatible with all the software and hardware I am using, and relatively cheap. Can someone explain why I need Vista? To trade one known set of security issues for a set of unknown ones?

I did, MS should too.

Vista was my final straw. We had the choice of moving from ASP to ASP.NET and MS-SQL 2000 to 2007. After Vista was released there was no more doubt that MS was headed in the wrong direction.

We went PHP and MYSQL. The conversion was not painless but it's worked well so far. We've seen a 10x increase in uptime, but a 6x drop in speed. I suspect better tuning of the MySQL platform will address that.

The uptime alone however has convinced us to continue to move in this direction. We're moving our CS and Shipping departments over to linux now. They'll boot into a read only Linux VM off the network. Every CS machine will be the same regardless of the hardware it runs on. If they get infected with something, a simple reboot cleans it all up. Update management is done to a single VM and all users get it at once.

We're not a huge company, but our servers serve over 100,000 customers and the linux solution is working very well for us. There is no reason for us to go back.

On the home front, I'm now dual booting linux. I play PC games, so I'm still tied to XP, but I uninstalled my Vista OS. It was free (from MS) and it just wasn't worth it.

Once I started learning how linux worked (and I was a total newbie at it when I started) I realized that our NAS drive which was a closed box solution that was reaching the end of it's life could easily be replaced by a simple linux box running Samba. With the cost savings I was able to build a mirror of the NAS drive and use rdiff to make it a complete back up of the primary NAS. Now I have more than I had before, for far less cost.

And I'm no longer a linux newbie. ;-)

service pack X

Windows XP was not an upgrade I was clamoring for, Win2000 was great for me.
I do however enjoy XP and would appreciate a Service Pack that would improve the system all around; improving compatibility, bug fixes, DirectX 10(not something I care too much about), and maybe that new permissions/security system they've included in Vista (more Unix like?). I'd even pay $100 bucks for it.

Linux is looking alot better than XP, let alone Vista every day.

Thats not quite

That article is not quite fair to microshaft I think. Annoying UAC? OSX does the same thign but you *can't* turn it off. Need a new computer to run it? MS is very clear about the increased requirements. They have two main problems with vista.
One: Drivers. Companies have been extremely slow in coming ouit with decent drivers for it. How long were release candidates out for companies to develop drivers for ? A year? That seems like plenty of time to come out with a halfway decent working driver; but companies didn't even bother till Vista was already out, and that is what caused the vast majority of the backlash.
DRM: DRM Sucks. Complaint justified, bitch away. I don't think MS should have caved the way they did to RIAA/MPAA pressures for control.
Bash MS for what they fuck up on, but don't condemn them and what is actually a pretty nice OS for things beyond their control.

I Vouch!

I recently spent a great pocket's worth of money for Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate. What do I now think? I freshly installed it on my "somewhat" OK gaming computer with an Intel Core2Duo E6300, some decent timing DDR2-800 2GB's worth of RAM and a 7900GT. What did I get? Programs burn up my CPU to always above 75%, and boot up uses 750MB of RAM with no drivers or applications with auto start.

When people say that Vista costs a bit much, they are all wrong. Vista burns a hole through your wallet, pocket, and undergarments. You don't only need the cash for the operating system; you need some for the system upgrades as well. You need a punishing Core2Duo or Core2Quad with ATLEAST 2 gigs and an 8800 by the green team, or the X2900 from the other green team to just get some satisfaction from the not-so new OS.

On that note, I can't even recommend a dual or quad graphics setup, simply because Vista can't run SLI or Crossfire properly. Don’t even get me started.

So in the end, what is my answer to “What do I now think of Vista?” I don’t even need to answer right?

Why to give up?

Over 60 million copies sold and many in use for free...

I don't see what the big fuss is about...

As a reviewer and writer who's went through dozens of system builds and installs with Vista, about the only thing I agree with from the article's source story, is that Vista was too little too late. I'll also admit that Vista Ultimate Edition is an albatross, hardly worth $6 more, less $160.

Apart from the DX10 debacle, there's little new or important in Vista, apart from the "love it or hate it" changes to the GUI and Explorer.

And yet...I've not found alot of reason to dislike Vista. Vista's handling of multithreaded processes and process load balancing are superior to XP, and this is a fundamental kernel difference that no amount of XP tweaking will resolve (unless your talking about XP x64 edition, which can't be taken seriously as an OS).

I've found little in the way of software that doesn't work properly in Vista. And the assertions at the tail end of the quoted article are almost laughable. MacOS? Please. And though I'm an Ubuntu user myself, there are some things that Ubuntu or any other linux distribution fall flat on their face doing in comparison to any Microsoft OS.

Some of the Vista backlash is about how the OS has become less of an issue when using a PC, since so much of PC use revolves around the internet these days. Still more though I feel is wistful backlash against change, and even some fear mongering in regards to DRM and Protected Path, issues that are brutted about with far more concern than they warrant.

Much in the way of what Vista "might do" with your content is merely poor reasoning, and a fundamental lack of understanding as to what Vista's driver model changes entail. We can thank people like Dr. Peter Gutmann, and his vitrolic and mostly scientifically incorrect diatribe on "The Cost Of Windows Vista Content Protection" for a great deal of the misinformation being spread. I wrote an article last year tearing apart the overwhelming majority of his misinformation and doom-speak. Search google for "Blame Vista" and I'm sure you'll find my rebuttal.

Vista is just an OS, and in this day and age the fact that it's merely an OS is the real problem for Microsoft, in light of how the importance of an OS has eroded.

Ultimate is much more STABLE than XP.

Dial up not so good, yet 99% of all vISTA features are far superior to XP. beta & RC, now theres some turkeys of HARDWARE from then,Certified meaning "I Don't Know". Unless you had 6200 open gl, in which case it was same as ultimate today. So Bad Mouths probably have deficient equipment. VISTA IS BEST, BAR NONE.

Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.

what ms should consider

Is: repackaging windows xp 64 bit edition as Vista 2.0, adding some of the plug ins and stuff you can get third party (just buy them out), add dx10, tweak it to make it boot faster, make sure the drivers are there and the DRM is LEFT OUT. I'm Running xp 64 bit on the machine used to type this. Its stable, fast and good!

Just Stupid

The Vole drop Vista? Ya right, I hope they hold on to that worthless pile of code all the way to the bottom!

More Vista half truths

I believe Don Reisinger ‘s blog entry titled “Why Microsoft must abandon Vista to save itself” is missing some key details, but this statement about movie DRM is extremely questionable:

"One significant problem that I have with Vista is its inclusion of new DRM, specifically the company's decision to install Protected Video Path. To prevent a person from copying (or in most cases, backing up) a movie, the operating system provides process isolation and if an unverified component is in use, the operating system shuts down DRM content. For the first time on any operating system, we're not even allowed to backup our favorite movies? Come on."

Well there tons or apps that let you backup DVD9’s in Vista. Two tools that I like are 1 Click DVD Pro (http://www.1clickdvdcopy.com/) and AnyDVD (http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html/). They work great in Vista Ultimate 32-bit, and while I don’t run 64-bit Vista yet, I’ve read in the forums for these two products that they’ll work fine with DVD9’s in 64-bit Vista.

Now Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are different. Reisinger ‘s comments would have you believe that just stick a Blu-Ray disk in an Ubuntu desktop and watch it and copy it all day long, since Ubuntu doesn’t have the nasty DRM. Well not exactly:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD

And what’s ironic about this is that DumpHD works in Vista since it’s a Java app! So the same software that Ubuntu doesn’t endorse or recommend to watch Blu-Ray content works in Vista, which removes the DRM and allows it to be copied freely, in any OS for that matter.

This is of course illegal because of content protection laws in the US and UK and most other nations.
Vista has the DRM in it because it has to to legally play protected content:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060824-7590.html

Oh lookie! OS X Leopard will have it too! Vista may have been first, but it’s not going to be the last for any OS that wants to legally play protected high-def content.

If one wants to make backups of pretty much all your DVD9, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs, 1 Click DVD Pro and AnyDVD work very well, though AACS evolves and may become more and more difficult to defeat, but for now most Blu-Ray content can be copied. Yes, that’s about $100 USD, but these apps are simple and easy to use. And there are free alternatives as well, like DumpHD.

The fact is that Reisinger has taken a technically and politically complex issue like content protection and made it seem as though Microsoft added DRM in Vista for some reason other than it had to be there to play high-def content. That came down from the like of Sony, Disney and Fox, not Microsoft.


There’s just more and more misinformation about Vista coming out from the anti-Microsoft crowd. This is just the latest example.

To be far and honest, I do agree that Microsoft has dropped the ball with “Ultimate Extras” to date. I would also be nice if Windows Ultimate were cheaper, perhaps at dropping the Home Premium altogether and putting Ultimate in the price category.
To date though, I’ve installed Vista on a half dozen machines ranging from a four year old P4 2.8GHz laptop with 1GB of RAM to Q6600 desktop with 4 GB of RAM, and all the machines worked great. The biggest issue has been drivers by far, but the situation is much better today.

Vista is a fine OS. What’s also strange about those clamoring about XP, is that a lot of the problems with migrating from XP to Vista have been related around security. Vista did what it had to do and tighten things up, which broke a lot of legacy apps.

I think that consumers need to abandon sensationalist Vista reporting.

Xp pwnds Vista !

Herro. vista was not what I was expecting when it released as so either was the world, I was expecting it to be a little buggy as voles operating systems usual are, Its Install time is lengthy, Its start up time is almost Standable, It operates slower then molasas, Unless your computer spec is super duper high With the spec of Intel core due or x2 6000 with 18 g's of ram and Nvidia Sli. I work for a tech firm here in Canada, thats right,,, Canada.. lol.. and I talk to alot of people with various operating systems and the number 1 thing I come across is how unfamiliar Vista is to them. When xp release I was like, Alright its not to dif from 98 and 2000 and there was a couple things I could of smacked the vole for. But over time it became stable and my fav OS. Now they have vista , which is like a moronic big over wieght out of work drunk all the time brother with a degree in computer science. Microsoft should dump Vista and start making a hybrid version of Xp, or they should make an upgrade for Xp without drm for the love of snt pete and add some of vistas features in.. , hahah That reminds me.. Remember how much they touted aero glass or whatever its called ... how often do you really use that... seriously, its nice and fancy and it makes Xp look like an amatuer OS but thats the only thing Vista has going for it is the interface... which really looks like a cheap nock off of what apples doing... Microsoft .. u mad the 360 a instable mess and sold it to people, u made vista an instable mess and sold it to people, U made windows me. Get your act together, Open sauce is looking betta to me at this point

Vista was good

Vista was good, SP1 should fix lots of things, and Windows 7 suppose to come. Agreed that Ultimate may not worth its price, but it was at least better than Mac OSX in term of pricing (my personal opinion).

Typical anti-microsoft tosh

Wow, who on earth believe's microsoft would dump a project that's cost them billions of dollars to release?! Not to mention the loss of face if they were to admit defeat and start again. What a load of B.S.

A surge in MAC sales?! and that's not just single handedly caused by the ipod raising awareness that MAC's amazingly still exist?

Not to mention fashion-minded and ill-educated IT monkeys strengthening this trend?! (strange how these two factors seem to go hand in hand)

Find some decent news Inq. I'm getting bored of the MS flaming.

"Windows faithful"?

I am not sure that a lot of the userbase are "windows faithful". Some of them are merely "defaultists", as to them, windows is all they know. Other users choose it as the path of least resistance, as although it's expensive, crippled and a bit scary, it does run things they want.

Not everyone can run WINE, or find alternatives which are as good natively. Not everyone wants a Mac. Heck, as a trivial example, some gamers (ahem) don't want to lose their fancy EAX. However, there's probably a point beyond which Microsoft can't push a lot of the userbase. Contrary to self-congratulatory marketroid hype and the beliefs of crazy fanbois, lots of folks just don't have a huge emotional investment in their operating system. It's a tradeoff, cost vs effort. As Vista has pushed the price up and brought a lot of baggage with it, they're just shifting the balance that bit further. It's not suprising that some of the "defaultists" want to stay XP, in addition to savvy users who have a genuine reason beyond price to want to hang back.

Would not go back to XP if you paid me

I can't believe all the negative press about Vista. For me it has been incredibly stable, fast and capable. The search feature on the start menu is the best, instead clicking through the program menu to launch an application, just start typing the name of the app and bam! It's there at the top of the list to launch, along with documents and e-mails that also contain the search term. This is as close to google's OneBox theory you are going to get.
Tie that in with tight support for .NET 3.5, Windows workflow foundation, Windows communication foundation, etc.
Just make sure you turn off the user access control.

Interesting

Wow so much negativity. It's funny to see when Apple pulls old technology and creates new technology it's just a known fact you have to adapt...hey that’s apple and they get praised for moving forward...But with Microsoft let them pull old Technology to create a totally new robust OS and they are condemned to Hell. I run two desktops and a Laptop with Vista...it's a good OS that is refreshing from the old. Sure you need more RAM (and as for the comment about why Vista uses all your RAM ...read up on Vista a little it's designed that way). The only thing i'll agree with is some compatibility issues with drivers but that is in an enterprise setting, when I use it at home I have no issues. If you don't have the hardware to upgrade to Vista.....then...don't...I’m sure it's the same people that still run windows 98 with 64MB of RAM. Vista is a new OS that runs good on new hardware...woohoo progress in the IT world!!

Good Old Days

I started writing applications for Winodws back in version 2.0 when most people hadn’t heard about it and used DOS. I've seen Windows evolve over the years. Sure, there have been versions which I never bothered with; however, in my experience, Vista isn't in that category.
I have been running Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition for April 2007 without a hitch; in fact, it solved a problem XP had with my RAID array and the Nforce 4 chipset. Overall I'd recommend the upgrade for most people. For example, Vista automates more of the routine maintenance which less savy users neglect.
I’ve read all the anti-MS propaganda, but frankly this seems more emotional than rational. For example, this morning I heard a piece on NPR where one so called expert claims Vista runs games slower. I don't doubt that it may run a particular game more slowly under a specific set of circumstances, but the benchmarks I've seen on DirectX 10 showed performance that was comparable and even better under some circumstances. Further, I doubt there are many games that take advantage of the many underlying enhancements, render targets, texture sizes or geometry shaders.
My point is that operating systems enable application developers, and in time I expect to see innovative applications that take advantage of the new features available in Vista. Nevertheless, I also expect there are some people who yearn for the “good old days” of DOS, Windows 98, and punch cards and simply don’t care to upgrade.

typical reaction

This is the typical reaction of the tech community whenever a new version of Windows comes out. Yeah, some things break, but others are good. Then it takes a while to get used to it. Then everyone starts to like it. It was the same with the launch of XP, but I guess no one remembers that.

Personally I have had no major problems with Vista, and know of many others in the same situation. Can't we stop whinging and just get on with moving forward?

Drop vista and Come back to XP ? why ?

I think Vista is most appealing, for now, to people who wants bells & whistles, and DX10 gaming.
Xp didn’t use 2Gb at all, at least vista uses your memory (properly or not!, it uses). you cant complain about it requires a better machine, by the way, you cant put XP on a 128mb RAM machine and USE it properly.
And we need a 64 bit OS, not xp 64bit (its s***). Supreme commander uses 2gb of address space, we reached the limit. Time to move on, the best option, for now, is 64bit vista, and wait for 64 bit applications.
I remember back in 2005 when M$ said "vista will only work on PCI-EX motherboards and 64bit CPU", they should have keep the promise.
Drop Vista ? its ok . Come back to XP ? hell no.
(sorry for my English, i am from brazil)

Just Not Worth It

I don't care what all of the pro-Vista users have to say, the operating system is totally useless, and way too slow for me.

I'm just so sick and tired of reverting back to Windows 98 on a 486DX475 performance every time Microsoft comes out with something new, aside from XP and 2000.

I don't care how cutsie, gizmoed up, and teched up the OS is, Linux will always have a better balance than Vista.

Also most of us can't afford the state of the art 16 processor, 9GHz, 30 terabyte, 16GB DDR6 RAM, SHQHD-DVD or Infared Ray DVD based computer just to be able to run and enjoy Vista at a comfortable standpoint. You know what I'm talking about. Being able to see justification for spending $9980 for your machine and run faster than what you used to have.

Yeah yeah

We've heard the same crap before every time that Microsoft releases a new version of its OS. "Why would I want Windows 95? MSDOS does it all! 16MB of RAM?!" "Why would I need Windows XP when I have Windows 98 Second Edition? 256MB of RAM?!?!" Blah blah blah. Every OS Microsoft has released has pushed the hardware bounds, but despite the naysaying, even a moderate system can still run Vista decently--with full effects. Give it some time.

Vista

Dunno what this article is on about, everyone i know who has Vista really likes it, including me..

Buy Mine.

Microsoft could always buy my OS design. After twenty years of development it could deliver everything the users really needs in less than 10MB, at speeds that makes normal windows look slow (most OS's actually). Realtime embedded too, with heaps of new IP. And I am not joking.

About the bug in fix issue, what do you expect when an company says that x amount of bugs in y lines of code is acceptable, you will always risk new bugs in rewrites. Solution write better, write less, and check more. We need an couple of new service packs for XP, that heals it, and restores performance (including when 3rd party security software is running) and reliability, and offers more security (like image checking instead of virus checking).

vista bad for bizznass

"windows 64 bit which can't be taken seriously as an OS"

well i dont know where you are coming from with that ? windows xp 64 bit has the exact same core as windows server 2003 64 bit , windows 64 runs great, i am the IT admin for the county wide 911 emergency center and we run windows 64 on all are computers dispatch and office ,, just try to find a place that will say that with vista,, i really cant see that happoning with vistas ablily to shut it self down if it thinks you are breaking the DRM or tampering with drivers , what a law suit watting to happon

weee tilt bits and product deativation

dump vista & new office

fire the whole vista team & start over,, double ditto for the new office