Microsoft Finally Says Goodbye to Windows Vista

Megalith

Megalith

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As hinted back in March, Windows Vista has now reached the end of its road. The 0.72 percent who are still using that OS for some bizarre reason should probably upgrade, as Microsoft has officially terminated extended support. Some of you seem to have very fond memories of Vista, so I won’t bash it like every other article out there.

…it’s easy to point out the bad parts of Windows Vista, [but] its release did many good things for Windows. A new search interface provided a strong foundation for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10, and many of the Start menu changes and design choices that still exist in Windows 10 today. Microsoft had much bigger ambitions with Vista that failed, but the fundamentals certainly pushed Windows forward in design, functionality, and security.
 
Bummer they didn't allow Vista --> Windows 10 upgrade path using Vista keys. I have a pile of Vista OEM and Retail boxes/keys laying around. :cry:
 
The Vista Ultimate addons were a very expensive guinea pig test from Microsoft. :mad:
 
I never had any problems with Vista but than I built my own computers and selected the proper components and had zero driver issues. I was impressed, compared to XP, with the stability of Vista. If a sound driver crashed while playing a game I could simply ctrl-alt-del, select my misbehaving game, end task and than restart the game without (unlike XP) rebooting. Vista was really Windows 7 first edition...
 
I had to kick and scream to get a few extra hours at my part time job to purchase 1GB extra RAM for Vista. And what a difference it made...
 
Vista is one of only 2 OS's I have ever run from launch day through the day it was replaced (by Win7) without a reformat, image restore, hiccup, etc.
The other was ironically Millennium edition.
 
I think I'm the entire of the .72% as I still have 6 Vista systems - 3 are laptops too old to upgrade even if I wanted too, which I don't. I've run it since launch day without any issues whatsoever. It's still my favorite Windows, I think it's much better laid out better then 7, 8 or 10.
 
Goodbye Vista. I lay coal on your grave. Or, I could just take the boxes out to the firing range and put a few holes in them. :D

Vista was crap for many wireless systems. Only when upgrading to Windows 7 did the wireless issues get solved depending upon the laptop. I won't miss Vista at all.
 
I like what the in the box visual enhancements that Vista brought. That was about it though..
 
thejokker said:
I never had any problems with Vista but than I built my own computers and selected the proper components and had zero driver issues. I was impressed, compared to XP, with the stability of Vista. If a sound driver crashed while playing a game I could simply ctrl-alt-del, select my misbehaving game, end task and than restart the game without (unlike XP) rebooting. Vista was really Windows 7 first edition...
Click to expand...
The driver structure was a lot better in vista than in XP.

But the problem with vista was no instability for me but it sever performance issues at the time.
also it had a lot of annoying bug her and there. like the dreade hey fi you paly media palayer im going to throttle you network throughput... oh and im also not really doing that right so her is 10mbits throughput on 1gbit network.

apperntly ms thought that network would be to hard alaod fo weka media palyers so they built in a throughput limiter that activated when you played back media. but the algortimewas wrong for 1gbit network
They fixed it later though but at the time it was to late i had given up as my games ran fine on XP so no need to go to vista.

Then there was the entire isseus about the new audio platform. remember creative ALChemy to bring bakc propepr sound effect in older games under vista ?

A lot of games could not enable vsync under vista.

So yes vVsta DID have a lot of issues. they got fixed after a while and games new games came out that worked better on the new driver structure. transaction was just a pain.
 
vegeta535 said:
The most misunderstood OS ever released.
Click to expand...

I thought that honor went to Windows ME?

Domingo said:
Vista is one of only 2 OS's I have ever run from launch day through the day it was replaced (by Win7) without a reformat, image restore, hiccup, etc.
The other was ironically Millennium edition.
Click to expand...

I loved windows me. I found that the problems with it typically came from installing it from a cd, if you copied the install files to the hd from the cd first, then booted into dos from a disk and installed it that way it ran stable and smooth. Install of the cd and it was crash test dummy time.
 
TechLarry said:
The one and only OS I ever paid full retail price for. $399. What a waste.
Click to expand...

Ditto (though I don't recall it being that much. Was that Ultra? I think I paid $299

I my XP install went shitty on me as I was negotiating a new job via email. Needed to fix that shit fast, and I didnt want to reinstall XP this soon before the 7 launch. Bought the digital download of Vista x64 Business a few weeks before the Windows 7 release. It came with a free Windows 7 upgrade, but when Windows 7 finally came out they didn't want to offer it for the Business edition. Had to argue with them, and finally got an upgrade to Windows 7 Pro, which I have since "upgraded" to Windows 10 Pro.

I got many years out of that license though, so I guess it wasn't a total waste.


Actually, just found my email from the Microsoft store.

Turns out I bought Windows Vista Business with SP1 64-bit Upgrade for $199.95 + tax

upload_2017-4-11_13-51-12.png



All that being said Vista got a worse reputation than it deserved. It was a huge leap forward for Microsoft in terms of security, bringing us UAC, which gives you a similar level of user and permissions control as *nix systems have had since the 70's.

The launch was a little rough due to poor driver support from hardware vendors, and UAC being a little over-reactive in the Gold release, but by the time SP1 came around it was every bit as good as Windows 7, just without DX11 and not as nice of a UI.
 
Probably an uncommon opinion, but I liked Vista more at the time than I like Win10 now. Windows 10 truly is an intrusive, half baked piece of shit.
 
tacos4me said:
Probably an uncommon opinion, but I liked Vista more at the time than I like Win10 now. Windows 10 truly is an intrusive, half baked piece of shit.
Click to expand...

I've had a LOT fewer issues with gaming under 10 than Vista. Hard to make the comparison on so many levels, hardware been vastly superior being on one. At this point you don't mind 10, even the data sharing because you find it useful, it runs fine with few issues which I think is probably most people. Then you have people that are having issues, or concerned about the privacy.

If I were having the issues I see around here, I don't even know how I'd be able to use my devices.
 
tacos4me said:
Probably an uncommon opinion, but I liked Vista more at the time than I like Win10 now. Windows 10 truly is an intrusive, half baked piece of shit.
Click to expand...


The way I see it is that Windows 10 fundamentals are solid.

It has a highly efficient Kernel and scheduler, uses the smallest disk and ram footprint of any recent Windows OS, and generally is quite pleasing to look at on the desktop, unlike Windows 8/8.1

Then Microsoft had to go screw it up by adding non-removable applications, cloud services, crippling the OS features unless you sign up for a totally unnecessary Microsoft account and tie your machine to it, REALLY shitty default privacy and bandwidth usage settings, and some data sharing that can't be disabled.

Windows 10 - IMHO - is probably simultaneously the best and the worst MS OS of all time. The OS fundamentals are the best ever, but from a strong-arming sleaziness perspective and poor privacy controls it is the worst ever.
 
I have a PC with Vista on it but don't have that PC powered up right now. Microsoft played a prank on some gullibles and told them the OS system they were using was Win7. Nope, it was Vista and they all said they liked it. Only Vista issue I noticed was HDD thrashing that would not stop no matter what I changed.
 
azuza001 said:
I thought that honor went to Windows ME?



I loved windows me. I found that the problems with it typically came from installing it from a cd, if you copied the install files to the hd from the cd first, then booted into dos from a disk and installed it that way it ran stable and smooth. Install of the cd and it was crash test dummy time.
Click to expand...
Oh no ME was garbage.
 
rezerekted said:
I have a PC with Vista on it but don't have that PC powered up right now. Microsoft played a prank on some gullibles and told them the OS system they were using was Win7. Nope, it was Vista and they all said they liked it. Only Vista issue I noticed was HDD thrashing that would not stop no matter what I changed.
Click to expand...


You are talking about the Windows Mojave experiment.

They installed vista on machines, telling users it was a fictitious "Windows Mojave" project and asked them if they liked it. Responses were nearly universally positive, and then they told them it was Vista.

They made it into an ad:

 
Add me to the few that liked Vista. Yeah it was resource hungry, but it was rock solid for me.
 
TechLarry said:
The one and only OS I ever paid full retail price for. $399. What a waste.
Click to expand...
As I recall, I got it for free by watching some educational videos...same with Office 2007. Vista was sketchy at launch thanks to piss poor drivers from ATI/Nvidia and Creative Labs (who didn't even try, because they just wanted to force everyone to buy new hardware)....not that Vista was bug free by any stretch, but I know when I finally installed it 6 months to a year after launch, I applied some hot fixes and it worked better than XP, at that point, for me. I liked 7's UI better, but I didn't find 7 changed much for me as far as crashes or day to day performance (but make no mistake 7 was better at launch than Vista...mostly because S/W and H/W companies had finally adjusted to the new architecture/api)
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The way I see it is that Windows 10 fundamentals are solid.

It has a highly efficient Kernel and scheduler, uses the smallest disk and ram footprint of any recent Windows OS, and generally is quite pleasing to look at on the desktop, unlike Windows 8/8.1

Then Microsoft had to go screw it up by adding non-removable applications, cloud services, crippling the OS features unless you sign up for a totally unnecessary Microsoft account and tie your machine to it, REALLY shitty default privacy and bandwidth usage settings, and some data sharing that can't be disabled.

Windows 10 - IMHO - is probably simultaneously the best and the worst MS OS of all time. The OS fundamentals are the best ever, but from a strong-arming sleaziness perspective and poor privacy controls it is the worst ever.
Click to expand...

I think this is an accurate way to look at it and helps to explain why there is a wide view of opinions of 10. I like and use things like Cortana. All of my mobile PCs are 2 in 1s thus I like the hybrid UI and I use a lot of Windows Store apps as a result. And I've had no issues using my older software and games, my Vive works well, monitor scaling is much better.

I'm empathetic to those who don't like 10, I'm in agreement with much of the criticism, I support an easy in the box off switch for almost all telemetry, understanding that Windows Update and Defender have ALWAYS had some level of telemetry. If I had stuff breaking constantly and weren't already using cloud services then I'd probably see it more like the critics do.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The way I see it is that Windows 10 fundamentals are solid.

It has a highly efficient Kernel and scheduler, uses the smallest disk and ram footprint of any recent Windows OS, and generally is quite pleasing to look at on the desktop, unlike Windows 8/8.1

Then Microsoft had to go screw it up by adding non-removable applications, cloud services, crippling the OS features unless you sign up for a totally unnecessary Microsoft account and tie your machine to it, REALLY shitty default privacy and bandwidth usage settings, and some data sharing that can't be disabled.

Windows 10 - IMHO - is probably simultaneously the best and the worst MS OS of all time. The OS fundamentals are the best ever, but from a strong-arming sleaziness perspective and poor privacy controls it is the worst ever.
Click to expand...
What features am I missing out with by not having an MS Account? For that matter, AFAIK, I'm not using any cloud services either (unless I log into drop box or similar services).
 
nilepez said:
What features am I missing out with by not having an MS Account? For that matter, AFAIK, I'm not using any cloud services either (unless I log into drop box or similar services).
Click to expand...


I didn't even realize I was missing out on features by not having a cloud account until recently, when I went to enable parental controls on my stepsons rig, like I used to have enabled in Win 7.. You know, computer can only be used between the hours of X and Y type of stuff. Used to be a simple thing to do locally from the admin account. It could lock out any non-admin acconts based on time in among other settings in the parental controls screen.

Was looking through all the settings in Windows 10 and I could just not find it, so I went googling.

Turns out that this feature (and apparently others too, but I am not sure what they are) was moved out of local account management and onto Microsoft.com.

If I want to use Microsoft parental controls I have to:

1.) Create a Microsoft account for my stepson.

2.) Create a Microsoft account for myself.

3.) Somehow verify that my account is a parent account for his.

4.) Set parental controls online on Microsoft's web page FOR CONTROL OF ACCESS TO A LOCAL EFFING MACHINE.

Absolutely insane. There is no reason at all this should be online, other than MS punishing those who have a distaste for typing their computers to online accounts and run local accounts only.

It makes me want to stab Microsoft in the face.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
You are talking about the Windows Mojave experiment.

They installed vista on machines, telling users it was a fictitious "Windows Mojave" project and asked them if they liked it. Responses were nearly universally positive, and then they told them it was Vista.

They made it into an ad:

Click to expand...


and that's why windows 7 was such a MASSIVE success.

no windows vista name.
 
Vista was crap for me. My most hated OS ever. Put up with it for a month and never touched my laptop until Win 7 came out. Upgraded to 7. Worked like a charm. UPgraded to Win 8. Worked great until my laptop died.

I wished MS EOL'd it much sooner.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I didn't even realize I was missing out on features by not having a cloud account until recently, when I went to enable parental controls on my stepsons rig, like I used to have enabled in Win 7.. You know, computer can only be used between the hours of X and Y type of stuff. Used to be a simple thing to do locally from the admin account. It could lock out any non-admin acconts based on time in among other settings in the parental controls screen.

Was looking through all the settings in Windows 10 and I could just not find it, so I went googling.

Turns out that this feature (and apparently others too, but I am not sure what they are) was moved out of local account management and onto Microsoft.com.

If I want to use Microsoft parental controls I have to:

1.) Create a Microsoft account for my stepson.
2.) Create a Microsoft account for myself.
3.) Somehow verify that my account is a parent account for his.
4.) Set parental controls online on Microsoft's web page FOR CONTROL OF ACCESS TO A LOCAL EFFING MACHINE.
Absolutely insane. There is no reason at all this should be online, other than MS punishing those who have a distaste for typing their computers to online accounts and run local accounts only.
It makes me want to stab Microsoft in the face.
Click to expand...

Not a feature I use, BUT I agree it doesn't seem like something that requires an online account. I'm not dead set against an MS account I've used them in the past, but I prefer going local. I do login via the MS Store so I can get apps there (which is mostly Netflix, but I've downloaded some others on occasion).
 
Vista is actually one of the few OS'es I have used that I deliberately downgraded because stuff didn't work properly for me (the other 2 are Win8.1 and Windows 98).

Win8.1 had games that outright refused to run, and it wasn't an old game by any means (went back to 7 and stayed on 7)
Vista wouldn't quit games properly and I had to do a complete system restart for every game I wanted to run, literally (went back to XP and stayed on it until Win 7).
Windows 98 was the most unstable system I have ever used in my entire life, my taste for windows 98 was so tainted that I have never used Win98SE, I just went straight from 95 to ME, which was also PoS, but I had no option for downgrade at the time, nor did I have the know how to do so (went back to 95 until I changed computers).

Win10 was the only other OS I have switched between it and an older version that was done for reasons not related to how it ran.
 
chenw said:
Win8.1 had games that outright refused to run, and it wasn't an old game by any means (went back to 7 and stayed on 7)
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Can I ask which ones? I try to make a note of which ones don't survive a Windows upgrade, since compatibility almost always gets lost on some level.
 
tetris42 said:
Can I ask which ones? I try to make a note of which ones don't survive a Windows upgrade, since compatibility almost always gets lost on some level.
Click to expand...
I honestly cannot remember, at all.

Ironically, not all OS upgrades loses compatibility, I actually had games that refused to run on win 7 to run again on win 10 for some bizarre reason, but that was also a while ago and I haven't tried since, it was more of a nostalgic trip more than anything else.
 
I loved Vista. If you ran Vista on new, supported hardware you basically got 7 two years early. It was a very good OS that got hammered for poor driver support.

You actually lost some features going from Vista to 7. Windows has been going downhill ever since.
 
I had an HP with an X2 6000+ that came with Vista. Didn't have any issues except for a couple odd XP compatibility things. I had to get a new printer and some other peripherals, nothing extreme.
 
i had a good run with vista, i didn't suffer from all the performance issues people were talking about.

i don't recall the specs of my pc at the time, but i believe it was X58 with 6 GB of ram.

it was a good 64 bit os.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
I loved Vista. If you ran Vista on new, supported hardware you basically got 7 two years early. It was a very good OS that got hammered for poor driver support.

You actually lost some features going from Vista to 7. Windows has been going downhill ever since.
Click to expand...

I have to agree, the OS they really need to EOL is window 10. I tried 10 for a year and I am now back to 8.1 due to MS removing programs and giving you a mediocre OS and the finger.
 
It wasn't "bad" but it was a resource HOG. It required so much more beef than XP to run smoothly, hell, Windows 7, 8 and 10 will run better than Vista on nearly all machines that can run Vista (assuming you have drivers for all components). It was OK, but what a flop.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
You are talking about the Windows Mojave experiment.

They installed vista on machines, telling users it was a fictitious "Windows Mojave" project and asked them if they liked it. Responses were nearly universally positive, and then they told them it was Vista.

They made it into an ad:

Click to expand...


If nothing else, this shows you the importance of making a good first impression.

Game developers make this mistake all the time.
 
I happily skipped from XP straight to 7. I used the vista beta a bit though, didn't like it.
 
It worked fine on my E6600 rig. Didn't really notice anything weird.
 
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