Where did Vista go wrong?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Archer75 said:
XP on 256mb of ram is unusable IMO. And I have tested it recently. 512mb on XP is painful but acceptable once everything gets loaded.
For me the bare minimum I would comfortably run XP at is 1gb. But then ram is cheap.
Click to expand...
It's usuable if you're not running something like Norton AV or other bloated crapware. But, it's still a dog and adding another 256MB makes a huge difference.

I ran 512MB RAM for a while on XP and it ran fine. When I moved to 1GB it really made a difference--especially in games. With Vista, 2GB is minimum and 4GB makes a noticeable difference.
 
TechieSooner said:
Let me see, I seem to recall that everyone thought 64k was acceptable at one point.

Fact? Stuff grows. RAM is cheap.

And, FWIW, all that RAM isn't necessarily running the OS itself. The RAM-necessary applications is what uses it. The TASK MANAGER is an application, OK? So please, move on.


And how are you measuring that?
<some people here know where I'm going with this...>
Click to expand...

Via task manager just like ALL THREE versions of Windows. I did NOTHING different on each one when I tested, so all three tests were VERY fair IMO. :)
 
QwertyJuan said:
Via task manager just like ALL THREE versions of Windows. I did NOTHING different on each one when I tested, so all three tests were VERY fair IMO. :)
Click to expand...

Yea, that would be your problem. It's NOT fair... Vista took all preconceptions and foreknowledge about the way an OS works with RAM and threw it out the Window. Task Manager isn't an accurate measure of RAM being used on Vista or Windows 7.
 
Vista went wrong when people who know nothing about computers started to complain about it...
 
TechieSooner said:
Yea, that would be your problem. It's NOT fair... Vista took all preconceptions and foreknowledge about the way an OS works with RAM and threw it out the Window. Task Manager isn't an accurate measure of RAM being used on Vista or Windows 7.
Click to expand...

I am not talking about how much it's using TOTAL, including 'cached'(I only have 25MB free out of 4GB right now) I am talking about the memory usage bar that is above that. Mine currently says "2.06GB" used... and I am NOT running anything of substance. Just a browser/MSN/Yahoo/Live Mesh and one proprietary work program.

P.S. If this isn't fair, do you mind telling me why Windows 7 only shows 600MB used?? :)
 
P.S. Do you mind telling me what YOU use to 'accurately' test ram usage? I will use that next time when I get into a discussion on how much ram my systems are using.

Thank you for your quick and courteous reply.
 
It's hard to gauge ram usage exactly, which makes this all very iffy. You have pageable ram, non-pageable ram, free ram, free ram that isn't zeroed, caches, and so on. I'm not sure what Win 7 does different (probably just changes the way the ram usage is reported, or makes more cached memory available for use at the cost of performance) but it may not be very different than Vista except in task manager numbers, to make people feel better. It'd be nice if someone could write a nice detailed article on the differences, but I haven't seen one yet. Vista also scales it's ram usage, the more you have the more it uses, for performance. I've installed it on 512MB systems where it only used about 400MBs, but on my 12GB system it uses around 4.6GBs, which makes sense, although I'm sure a lot of people who don't understand these things will say 'damn!' ...
 
Last edited:
P.S. I am NOT complaining about how much ram Vista uses... I have 4GB in my laptop and I'm happy. Vista works great, end of story. When I had XP on here, it used a MAX of about 1.2-1.3GB of ram, and the other 2.7GB just sat there unused. Why NOT use all of your ram?? That still doesn't change the fact that Vista uses more ram to run efficiently. Is that "WRONG" or something??
 
Win7 really has solidified everything that was wrong with Vista. WIn7 has shown that Vista was half cooked, and half designed. Perhaps it was the changing of the guard, but Microsoft quickly changed it's totalitarian tune when Vista tanked, and they started listening to their customers. They're in a much better place this time around, and actually have a decent OS on their hands. I personally will never touch Vista again after using Win7.
 
bonsai said:
Win7 really has solidified everything that was wrong with Vista. WIn7 has shown that Vista was half cooked, and half designed. Perhaps it was the changing of the guard, but Microsoft quickly changed it's totalitarian tune when Vista tanked, and they started listening to their customers. They're in a much better place this time around, and actually have a decent OS on their hands. I personally will never touch Vista again after using Win7.
Click to expand...
Huh?

Explain what makes the fundamental mindset of Win7 any different from Vista. Yes, there are new features. But the same overarching design principles (security trumps convienience, usability, search) are behind both of them.
 
Arainach said:
Huh?

Explain what makes the fundamental mindset of Win7 any different from Vista. Yes, there are new features. But the same overarching design principles (security trumps convienience, usability, search) are behind both of them.
Click to expand...

Yeah, just Vista hate. 7 is a relatively minor upgrade from Vista, a fit in finish release. If anything 7 vindicates Vista's overall design I believe.

7 is a lot more than Vista SP3 however. But Vista R2 actually would make some sense in the Microsoft naming scheme when you look at Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2.
 
I don't think this has been mentioned, but there were two big issues for gamers.

The big one was that DirectX10 took forever to get rolling. While Directx10 compatible video cards were out before Vista's release, the DirectX10 drivers were a problem for quite a while after the release. Also, DirectX10 mode in games were considerably slower than DirectX9 mode, and the visual benefits were minimal.

The second one was that DirectX9 was a bit slower in Vista than in XP. Because of these two issues, gamers didn't have a real good reason to upgrade.


Now those issues have been worked out, and gaming in DirectX10 on Vista is a pleasant experience. But that slow start certainly made gamers wary of Vista.
 
heatlesssun said:
Yeah, just Vista hate. 7 is a relatively minor upgrade from Vista, a fit in finish release. If anything 7 vindicates Vista's overall design I believe.

7 is a lot more than Vista SP3 however. But Vista R2 actually would make some sense in the Microsoft naming scheme when you look at Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2.
Click to expand...
The fact that if feels and looks less clunky than Vista is very apparent. Someone called it "Vista Lite" which seems fitting. It's simply a more efficient OS.

They probably would have called it Vista SE had Vista been well received. From now on they should stick to using numbers and get rid of the stupid names.
 
dark_reign said:
The fact that if feels and looks less clunky than Vista is very apparent. Someone called it "Vista Lite" which seems fitting. It's simply a more efficient OS.

They probably would have called it Vista SE had Vista been well received. From now on they should stick to using numbers and get rid of the stupid names.
Click to expand...

They are completely changing the name to try and differentiate it completely from Vista. It only makes good business sense to do so....
 
QwertyJuan said:
They are completely changing the name to try and differentiate it completely from Vista. It only makes good business sense to do so....
Click to expand...

Don't forget that 7 is a lucky number in Western cultures. In a way the name is a pun if you think about Vista's PR problems.
 
bonsai said:
Win7 really has solidified everything that was wrong with Vista. WIn7 has shown that Vista was half cooked, and half designed. Perhaps it was the changing of the guard, but Microsoft quickly changed it's totalitarian tune when Vista tanked, and they started listening to their customers. They're in a much better place this time around, and actually have a decent OS on their hands. I personally will never touch Vista again after using Win7.
Click to expand...

You could say every OS is half-cooked and half-designed after it's successor is released. Another obvious (MS's) cup is half empty nonsensical statement. And by what metric do you consider Vista to have 'tanked?' The amount of trolling done against it on mac blogs and slashdot? Vista sold 75% more than anticipated, Mac OS X and Linux will never 'tank' so well. Vista is stable and fast, if you've had problems with it, all I can say is all non-trivial software has the occasional problem, so.. win 7 is a validation of the design decisions that went into making Vista, all that hard work is now paying off, if MS had listened to people like you, we'd all be looking forward to XP SE or something right now.
 
QwertyJuan said:
They are completely changing the name to try and differentiate it completely from Vista. It only makes good business sense to do so....
Click to expand...
Yes, but "Vista" was a terrible name long before they released it. I just think Microsoft needs to simplify their naming schemes for their OSes and just stick to numbers. "Windows 7" sounds better and more professional. It may not be catchy, but who cares?
 
Maybe it's just me, but every time I see a reference to UAC I flash back to Doom...:D

I come from having never used Vista -- I'm stepping up from XP -- so I probably have no business in this thread other than to say that I *love* Windows 7. For what it's worth, I think that this is the most impressive version of Windows that I have seen.

One of Vista's main problems came from the business perspective. It simply made no good business sense to upgrade a corporation's desktop PCs to Vista from XP. There was really no advantage to doing so for business users, and a whole lot of potential compatibility headaches. So Microsoft lost out on that large market.

By contrast, there *were* some significant advantages for business users to moving from Win2000 to XP. System restore, better wireless support, app compatibility mode, remote desktop, windows firewall, and better handling of roaming profiles, to name just a few.

Can't really name anything significant that Vista brought to the table for business users.
 
I don't think Vista "went wrong" at all, other than the confusing "Vista Capable" debacle.

I do think that a lot of people with older PCs saw the pretty Aero screenshots and went out and bought Vista without doing any research into system resource impact, UI compatibility with their integrated GPUs, etc. The early driver problems got ironed out.

No one I know who bought a new computer with Vista pre-loaded disliked it. Everyone else huffed and puffed.
 
Vista violated my number 1 rule when it comes to consumer electronics, "things should shut the fuck up and just do what I tell it to do the first time and remember my answer".

The second major f-up MS did was making it hard to use unsigned drivers, Im running some lab/test hardware thats nearly as old as I am, the maker of the stuff isn't even in buisness any more but the equipment runs just fine.

Ok HD are getting bigger etc but good lord 11gb install foot print before any updates, and by the time it is fully updated you are looking at 15+gb. Seriously MS, make a selective install system that lets us not install the 3000 languages, 1000 cursers, 30000 fonts, 2000 icon packs.
I want the footprint of Linux and the usability of W7, why, small flash drive(32gb) for OS.


I still can't figure out how to change file type icons without using window blinds or equiv.

Seriously 48 running processes(using 600+mb of ram) to maintain an idle desktop with networking? Isn't it about time some of this stuff gets consolidated or just dumped.
 
bonsai said:
Win7 really has solidified everything that was wrong with Vista. WIn7 has shown that Vista was half cooked, and half designed. Perhaps it was the changing of the guard, but Microsoft quickly changed it's totalitarian tune when Vista tanked, and they started listening to their customers. They're in a much better place this time around, and actually have a decent OS on their hands. I personally will never touch Vista again after using Win7.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:

I'll just quote an earlier post of mine:

TechieSooner said:
Most people have no idea that Windows 7 is just Vista with some additional stuff on top of it. Thus, those who bash Vista but praise Windows 7, are the biggest morons you'll encounter.
Click to expand...

'nuff typed on that...

Nanan said:
Vista violated my number 1 rule when it comes to consumer electronics, "things should shut the fuck up and just do what I tell it to do the first time and remember my answer".
Click to expand...
And guess what? That "rule" of yours also allows any malicious program to run without you knowing it as well.

Nanan said:
The second major f-up MS did was making it hard to use unsigned drivers,
Click to expand...
Yea... Getting rid the thorn in Windows' side (shotty drivers) was a bad thing.
Heck, let's all start writing Microsoft to make it easier for developers to write shitty drivers again!!!! :rolleyes:


Nanan said:
Ok HD are getting bigger etc but good lord 11gb install foot print before any updates, and by the time it is fully updated you are looking at 15+gb. Seriously MS, make a selective install system that lets us not install the 3000 languages, 1000 cursers, 30000 fonts, 2000 icon packs.
Click to expand...
Not everyone uses stuff the same way you do. There's different regions of the world that have different currency systems, different ways and desires to want their stuff to work.

That's the good thing about Windows: choices.


There will NEVER EVER be a single operating system that fits everyone's needs. Period.
 
Nanan said:
Seriously 48 running processes(using 600+mb of ram) to maintain an idle desktop with networking? Isn't it about time some of this stuff gets consolidated or just dumped.
Click to expand...

Uh, how does windows know you are just going to waste your computer and sit there looking at an idle desktop? Windows assumes you will, you know, USE your computer, so it loads a bunch of default stuff it assumes you may need. It can't guess your exact workload and needs, to only load the drivers, services and windows apps you need, how can you expect it to? Windows has to be useable by most everyone, so what most everyone needs gets loaded. Duh?
 
PenaltyShot said:
By contrast, there *were* some significant advantages for business users to moving from Win2000 to XP. System restore, better wireless support, app compatibility mode, remote desktop, windows firewall, and better handling of roaming profiles, to name just a few.
Click to expand...

Since Win2K does not support Intel's P4 hyperthreading, most new business PC's with hyperthread capable P4's were shipped with XP. The drivers were the same as Win2K, network stack the same. It was almost transparent change.

Vista changed the entire OS, drivers, look/feel, network stack, etc. in the name of DRM (excuse me, Blu-Ray playback) and business do not need their employees watching Blu-Ray videos or playing DirectX 10 games.
 
My experience with vista in overall was good, it was way better stable than XP when it came out back in 2001. I've been using it on my old Athlon 2500 computer without any issues, computer was same fast as on XP with same specs. I had some compatibility issues with one mainboard driver but I fixed it myself. It was good experience to be running operating system from 2007 on 3 years old computer made in 2004 same as using at new computers in the start of 2007. Worse performance in games was caused by their higher demands than that computer could hold, but it was not Vista problem(same it was on XP).
As for Vista, it got pretty improvements...etc system seems to be more user friendly and smarter, the help system was improved alot. But in most cases it is still Windows NT, control and using is same as previous windows version with very small differences. Simply Vista was not bad, but also it is not a revolution.
 
I honestly think that Vista did very little "wrong" by themselves. After a couple months of Vista's release, I made the switch and never let XP touch my main system again. However, I still have it running on older systems for obvious reasons.

Most of the issues I had were not of the OS. Hell, If I installed vanilla Vista right now (no service pack) with the latest drivers, I will probably have no problems at all. Now I'm on Win7 RC and it feels just like Vista with an improved taskbar, a slightly tweaked UI, and a bit less intrusive UAC. It's exactly what Steve Ballmer said, "Windows 7 is like Vista, but better."
 
panhead said:
Since Win2K does not support Intel's P4 hyperthreading, most new business PC's with hyperthread capable P4's were shipped with XP. The drivers were the same as Win2K, network stack the same. It was almost transparent change.

Vista changed the entire OS, drivers, look/feel, network stack, etc. in the name of DRM (excuse me, Blu-Ray playback) and business do not need their employees watching Blu-Ray videos or playing DirectX 10 games.
Click to expand...
DRM wasn't even on the list of reasons for the driver model change. The old model was unstable and lead to BSODs. The Network stack was a mess with horrible perf. And Video Drivers were the single biggest source of system crashes. Moving them out of Kernel mode was a huge positive.
 
panhead said:
Since Win2K does not support Intel's P4 hyperthreading, most new business PC's with hyperthread capable P4's were shipped with XP. The drivers were the same as Win2K, network stack the same. It was almost transparent change.

Vista changed the entire OS, drivers, look/feel, network stack, etc. in the name of DRM (excuse me, Blu-Ray playback) and business do not need their employees watching Blu-Ray videos or playing DirectX 10 games.
Click to expand...

Yep. Good points.
 
1. Poor performance and many issues pre-SP1 - especially the much slower file oprerations compared to XP. Also higher hardware requirements - it took about a year for hardware to catch up to Vista standards.

2. Many changes under the hood like a completely new driver model. It took too long for hardware companies to put out decent drivers

3. UAC was the right thing to do but many poorly written apps triggered unnecessary prompts.

4.. Apple really took advantage of the early problems with Vista. They poisoned the Vista name. Vista also got an unfair amount of negative press in the media.

5. Many features that were supposed to have been exclusive to Vista were backported to XP. Microsoft really didn't have a choice because of all the delays getting Vista released. Also because of the delay, third party companies implemented their own versions of many Vista-exclusive features like gadgets and instant search.

6. Also Apple had time to put those features into their own OS before Vista was released, making it look like Microsoft was copying Apple, not the other way around.

Windows 7 is mostly about marketing. They're re-releasing Vista with lots of user interface tweaks (it's just a .1 upgrade to the kernel) to make it look very new and most importantly, different from Vista. Had they called it "Vista Second Edition", many would probably not be as positive about Win7... The user interface improvements are significant however. Aero in Vista was mostly for eye candy, in Win7 they have used it to actually make it easier to work with multiple windows etc.
 
While I'm not trying to stir up shit, I just read that Anand article start to finish (thank god his site has the "Print Article" link, makes things so much easier) and I can't help but get a good laugh about the fact that XP Pro x64 compared so favorably (and even beat out the competition in many instances) to the most current behemoths. I miss it, but... I'm just too stuck on Windows 7 nowadays to worry about going back.

But, if I have another box handy and I want the best performance from some of my older apps and hardware, it'll have XP Pro x64 on it without question.

"XP Pro x64 is dead... long like XP Pro x64..." :D
 
Windows 7 is mostly about marketing. They're re-releasing Vista with lots of user interface tweaks (it's just a .1 upgrade to the kernel) to make it look very new and most importantly, different from Vista
Click to expand...
Kernel versions are arbitrary; the 6.1 was done for compatible reasons (because poorly coded apps check if the major version number == 6 rather than >= 6); there's still plenty of under-the-hood changes. Sort of like how Win95 returned 3.95 as its version number instead of 4.x.
 
Arainach said:
Kernel versions are arbitrary; the 6.1 was done for compatible reasons (because poorly coded apps check if the major version number == 6 rather than >= 6); there's still plenty of under-the-hood changes. Sort of like how Win95 returned 3.95 as its version number instead of 4.x.
Click to expand...

WDDM is also a minor upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1. Other than that, not many changes to the actual core of the OS. Not like Vista which introduced a new compositing engine, new driver standards for video and sound etc. I mean you can tell when you're using Win7 that it's basically Vista. Go back to the old Taskbar and it's pretty much the same thing.
 
Just.....no. Plenty of things changed. Look at the Engineering Windows 7 blog or Channel9 for examples.
 
Most of the people I know, including myself, prefer XP over Vista. I don't consider myself to be stupid or ignorant (well, not that much, at least). Vista does a lot of quirky and annoying things.
 
beowulf7 said:
Most of the people I know, including myself, prefer XP over Vista. I don't consider myself to be stupid or ignorant (well, not that much, at least). Vista does a lot of quirky and annoying things.
Click to expand...

Care to list a 'few' of those things?
 
I wish I found this thread earlier.. Oh the troubles I've had with Vista.

Let's start by saying that I have been building computers and programming before most of you were born, so spare me the n00b treatment.

The time was 2007, and I was looking to buy a nice laptop for my wife.. I decide on IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad X61t Tablet PC. It comes from one of the most reputable laptop makers and known for its iron-clad T-series. I also decided to go with Vista Ultimate. Sure I've heard the news about problems and incompatibilities.. but those are for newbies and I should be more than enough to handle this, right? I order it with 2GB RAM just to be sure.

So I get my brand-new laptop, and I reinstall the OS from the scratch to get rid of all those spamwares and useless crap they pre-install. And I install newest BIOS, chipset drivers, 965 GMA video drivers, and whatever and boot.. Damn thing is S..L..O..W! And it crashes almost every 30 minutes doing the most basic stuff (browsing web on Firefox, MS Office, One Note, IDLING!).

After working on it for about two months to get the damn thing to run stable and I disable and uninstall whole bunch of yet more crap programs and services from Microsoft, Intel and Lenovo.. After disabling Trusted Computing services, Turbo Memory crap, Lenovo proprietary wifi client, and all kinds of junk, my laptop finally lasts a day without crashing.

But it still runs slow as hell, very slow at file transfer (especially over LAN), have to click crapload of boxes to give admin permission (thanks UAC!) that locks up the whole OS, and all other kinds of problem that causes long-term instability and usability. Now my wife hates me for giving her this crap.

To be fair, I've recently built an Core i7 system with 6GB RAM and I crossed my finger and installed Vista 64 Ultimate.. This thing runs pretty nice without much problems, but then it'd BETTER RUN SMOOTH at these hardware spec! I'm upgrading it Win7 as soon as I finish downloading RC.

I finally decided to reformat the laptop and decide to install Vista SP1, hoping it would solve most of the problems.. then it fails to install SP1 and other patches and I have to reboot and retry dozens of times with different BIOS/drivers/service options until it finally decide to install the updates. Now my system runs a tad bit faster, Turbo Memory runs (though I don't think it speeds up any) without much problem, and I disabled UAC so it doesn't bug me as much. But now my laptop won't wake up from sleep and reboots all the time.. I've tried just about everything from fiddling with power settings, disabling S3 sleep, and more. I've scoured web for solutions but yet to find one that works.

Sooo.. I think the next time I get a good chunk of free time, I'm gonna install XP on that laptop and throw that laptop in fire. I've had enough with Vista!
 
And i'm willing to bet that none of that is an issue with vista itself. But rather poor drivers. Laptop vendors don't update their drivers often so you are usually stuck with what they give you and you got very early drivers.
 
You do have a point.
I am sure Vista is not the sole cause of the misery, but the overall experiences with Vista has been crap on laptops compared to Windows XP. I've NEVER had this much trouble with laptops compared to DOS, Win 3.x, Win95/8, NT, 2000, XP, Linux, Ubuntu, and OSX.

There is reason that I've NEVER heard of any business and enterprise system running Vista. No sys admins are masochistic enough to dare dealing with it.

Oh yeah... I've always worked with latest available drivers. Most of the drivers I'm using are as new as 4/30/2009.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top