Microsoft Responds To "Save XP" Petition

[Advil]

My situation mirrors orkan's exactly. I own and operate a computer store and no one wants Vista. I won't say it's 0 in 300. In my case maybe more like 1/20 or less, but that's still the same thing.

I sell what the customer wants, and the customers do NOT want Vista.

And I'm no Vista hater. I like it quite a bit. I've used Home Premium 64bit on my home system since launch day. It's fine. I LIKE it. But I can not push something that people do not want.

The frustrating thing is that there are software and hardware walls that we are about to hit. The operating system must change. We NEED to go to a 64bit OS and soon or addressable memory limits are going to hold back games. We NEED to get off of the XP kernel before viruses destroy everyone's computer. The rate of severe infection in skyrocketing with XP. But no one cares. They hate Vista so much that I can't even begin to sell it.

So there you have it. I don't know what Microsoft is going to have to do. It's a rock and a hard place. Force it on people and they will hate. Don't force it on people and wait until XP reaches its absolute limits and they will hate.

It is possible that Vista will fail and the next OS will be our only hope but by then the issues will be dire and people will have to change no matter what.

Whatever. I'm sick to death of listening to customers whine about what someone ELSE said is wrong with Vista. I simply do not care anymore. People are going to have to learn the hard way. I'm not going to try to talk folks into something where they insist they know better than me. Whatever. They want XP, I sell XP.

Can you tell I'm tired of this? It's like living the HD format war every day behind the counter.

 

[Jester1550]

I've been using Vista for about 6 months now on my laptop and XP for years on my desktop. I gotta say that I haven't had a problem with either OS. XP is very stable, I can't recall the last time it crashed on me actually. Vista does require a bit of adjustment, but overall is a good OS.

My only complaint about Vista has been that it's slow to hibernate my laptop. I realize that most of that is because I have a slow HD which takes quite a while to write to the disk... its actually faster to shutdown than to hibernate. Other than that, I've had very few problems with Vista. Yeah networking between the two different OSes took some getting used to but I got over it.

Given all that... I'm still not upgrading my main to Vista. Why? Because I still haven't seen a difference between the two. I don't get viruses on my XP box (probably because I don't click on those wonderful "YOU'VE WON A FREE XBOX 360" ads) and the last time I had to reinstall XP was when I originally built this rig a year and a half ago.

So tell me why I should spend $150 or so to upgrade? What do I gain from upgrading? Answer -nothing. Yes, I could get DX10 with Vista, but from what I've seen from [H] reviews it's not much to speak of. Coincidentally 'nothing' is how much I'd be willing to pay to upgrade to Vista... until some killer game/app comes out that requires Vista and then we'll talk.

 

[LeviathanZERO]

congrats on being uninformed. how bout you use the OS before you bash it?

Uninformed?
You are full of comedy.

I came to those conclusions from USING it.
Its the exact same thing that happened when I tried going to ME from 2K.

Oooo, I'm bashing it. I dont agree with you.
Get real. You act like i peed on you cat. Its a stupid OS for crying out loud. Don't try to shut me up cause my opinion is different from yours.

VISTA SUX AND I DONT CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

 

[LeviathanZERO]

I mean 2K to ME, not the other way.

 

[brom42]

I am trying to support Vista in a large corporate network environment and it has been an utter nightmare. IE7 has broken at least half of my browser-based apps. Network resource browsing is incredibly slow. Roaming profiles do not work as they should. Legacy application compatibility is abysmal at best. Partial blame goes out to the hardware developers because driver support for legacy hardware sucks.

Its complaints like this that always make me laugh. If you are having so many problems, then why in the hell did you deploy Vista on your network? Before any of the corporate owned computers on my network get upgraded to a new OS, Service Pack, or even major updates in programs like IE; they have to go through a long testing phase. I was just about to green light Vista to move to optional upgrade status, but now with SP1 coming out I have pushed it back. I usually test SPs for about 2 months before deployment.


All I can think about when I see these threads is the backlash I had to deal with when XP came out and I stopped offering 98. I had a lot of people who refused to let me upgrade their systems. After 2 years of fighting them, I just cut off all network access to their computers and refused to allow them back onto the network until they upgraded. I had one department that actually gave me a signed petition to not force them to upgrade. Got to love how history repeats itself.

 

[lathode]

So much bitching in this thread. I guess what Microsoft just needs to do is build their own PC's, make them propietary, and only sell their O/S for it. Works for Apple. That way no one can bitch about their hardware not working. Also soo many people saying MS is a monopoly etc. Buy a friggin Mac or get Linux. If you don't like MS than don't use it

 

[Azhar]

Uninformed?
You are full of comedy.

I came to those conclusions from USING it.
Its the exact same thing that happened when I tried going to ME from 2K.

Oooo, I'm bashing it. I dont agree with you.
Get real. You act like i peed on you cat. Its a stupid OS for crying out loud. Don't try to shut me up cause my opinion is different from yours.

VISTA SUX AND I DONT CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

Your post is moronic not because of your dislike for Vista, but for saying it's like ME. ME was unstable and prone to crashes and bluescreens. Vista is not.

It's like comparing a Camaro with a Mustang. Both are reliable and fast cars, but just because someone likes Fords doesn't mean the Camaro is a bad car. You just don't like it, thats all.

You're comparing a Mustang with a Yugo.

So you don't like Vista. We're happy for you. But to say it's another ME is where you come out as uninformed.

 

[Azhar]

Its complaints like this that always make me laugh. If you are having so many problems, then why in the hell did you deploy Vista on your network? Before any of the corporate owned computers on my network get upgraded to a new OS, Service Pack, or even major updates in programs like IE; they have to go through a long testing phase. I was just about to green light Vista to move to optional upgrade status, but now with SP1 coming out I have pushed it back. I usually test SPs for about 2 months before deployment.


All I can think about when I see these threads is the backlash I had to deal with when XP came out and I stopped offering 98. I had a lot of people who refused to let me upgrade their systems. After 2 years of fighting them, I just cut off all network access to their computers and refused to allow them back onto the network until they upgraded. I had one department that actually gave me a signed petition to not force them to upgrade. Got to love how history repeats itself.

Makes you wonder how he got his job, doesn't it? Not only he did a pisspoor job of migrating, but he's unable to fix problems. What struck me as funny was when he used IE7 as an example. IE7's been around for awhile before Vista and uses practically the same mechanism as IE6.

 

[Jester1550]

Wow this thread is going downhill fast...

IBTL

 

[markt435]

Uninformed?
You are full of comedy.

I came to those conclusions from USING it.
Its the exact same thing that happened when I tried going to ME from 2K.

Oooo, I'm bashing it. I dont agree with you.
Get real. You act like i peed on you cat. Its a stupid OS for crying out loud. Don't try to shut me up cause my opinion is different from yours.

VISTA SUX AND I DONT CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

lol

right...usually good opinions are backed up with facts. i don't know how many times the ME comparison has been thrown out as complete BS. ME was a garbage OS which was practically always unstable and most people had a hard time getting it to run correctly even for a short period of time. vista...? not even close. not to mention its now over a year later since the RTM came out. drivers are certainly better, bugs are getting patched, and more and more software is friendly with the OS. SP1 is upon us as well.

"vista sux guise. it r new ME!!!!"

 

[DarkLegacy]

People that cry that Vista Sucks usually fall into 3 Categories

1) Gamers that expect top performance out of the OS while disregarding that's it's NEW
2) Users who expect there aging hardware to work flawlessly with the OS
3) Users who simply believe the OS should be leaps & bounds superior to its predecessor

This is nothing new. Unless you are absolutely dumb or new to the WIndows OS, this is a repeating scenario that dates back to the beginning of Windows. Newer releases always have a wide range of problems. People praise how great Windows XP is. I will agree that it is indeed a great OS. However, with that said, Xp has been pounded on for many years to get it where it is today. When it first came out, XP was a flat out disaster. It was FAR worst than Vista is at this stage. Don't even compare ME to Vista. That is an insult on many levels.

Vista to me is the best OS they've come out with. The Security is top notch & yet people find ways to whine about that as well. Isn't that what users wanted? They cry about the UAC. Be glad the thought about something. I run Windows XP along with Vista Ultimate & I see much less security related issues on the Vista end. The OS itself has greatly improved in the past year. To the point where I don't even need to use my XP Drive anymore. Everything runs great under Vista now. All of my games are at near performance as they were under XP. Driver updates from hardware I did have issues with before all run very well now. Overall, I'm very happy.

In the end, people will always find ways to cry about Windows. Some consumers are simply not satisfied & others just want to join the " in crowd " at bashing it while not having a clue what they are talking about. Just pretty much quoting & re wording what they read somewhere else. Hell, I'm sure some haven't even used the OS at all in this very thread & they bash it. Maybe even tried to install it on there sad PC with there 1 gig of ram & 4 year old proc & cried " It's so slowwww ". Nothing is wrong with Vista at this moment. Saying otherwise is only making a fool of yourself.

-DarkLegacy

 

[tnu5]

This is what would happen if this forum is hosted on a Vista machine

 

[Cinge]

I broke down and switched to Vista a week ago and so far, it's not too bad since they fixed some of the major things. Yea, UAC is a pita at times but, I'm getting used to it.

However, I still think XP is a kick butt OS and deserve a couple more years of being around. It's lean and mean and just works. I may order a few copies just to keep around for friends and family I build systems or. It would be nice if the "going out of retail sale price" would be nice.

 

[Vorazan]

Vista has horrible gaming performance. Honestly. I dunno what it was, either crappy nvidia vista drivers, or just vista in general, but I had 40 fps in STALKER on vista and also random fps drops to 0... i switched to XP and its 90 - 100 fps stable with no drops.

 

[bmorg003]

Given all that... I'm still not upgrading my main to Vista. Why? Because I still haven't seen a difference between the two. I don't get viruses on my XP box (probably because I don't click on those wonderful "YOU'VE WON A FREE XBOX 360" ads) and the last time I had to reinstall XP was when I originally built this rig a year and a half ago.

So tell me why I should spend $150 or so to upgrade? What do I gain from upgrading? Answer -nothing. Yes, I could get DX10 with Vista, but from what I've seen from [H] reviews it's not much to speak of. Coincidentally 'nothing' is how much I'd be willing to pay to upgrade to Vista... until some killer game/app comes out that requires Vista and then we'll talk.

You hit the nail on the head! Vista offers no compelling reason to upgrade. The same was true for Win2k users when XP first came out, but at least XP moved everybody (Win98 users) to the same codebase (with some backward compatibility). XP also allowed users to try to use unsigned drivers (and Win2k drivers) to ease the pain of upgrading. I thought that XP was a little large when it first came out (compared to Win2k), but Vista makes it look like an anorexic. I've used Vista, and while it's not a "horrible" OS, I prefer the (much) leaner and still very reliable Windows XP. Until Microsoft can offer me a real reason to upgrade, I'll stick with XP. I'm sure there are many other people that feel the same way.

 

[Darkest Daze]

Vista has horrible gaming performance. Honestly. I dunno what it was, either crappy nvidia vista drivers, or just vista in general, but I had 40 fps in STALKER on vista and also random fps drops to 0... i switched to XP and its 90 - 100 fps stable with no drops.

The fault does lie mostly on Nvidia's shoulders. When Vista was released I would get horrid FPS and basically be looking at a slideshow. As newer drivers came out, I would get better and better performance. At this point, I'm running nearly as fast as I did while on XP. I doubt you'll get 100% the same performance with older hardware in Vista as XP, but it'll be damn close. What I look at it as, is what it was like when XP first came out. 98 was still faster and much more fleshed out, but as time went on, everyone upgraded because performance was basically the same in both along with the newer tech being available to those with the newer OS.

 

[zombiebeat]

Going to have to agree also. Been using Ultimate x64 for over 6+ months now and no issues with th OS at all. I had one crash and that was because i installed a buggy, poorly written 3rd party app. Uninstalled it and Vista ran like a champ again. With the newest drivers, I'm running nearly as fast as my XP install was.

That's Vistas whole problem right there and to me that aint ever acceptable, like with XP I can't help but think we're doing Microsoft's Beta (Alpha?) testing for them.

I waited till well after SP1 before I switched to XP, looks like I'll be doing the same with Vista.

 

[refraxion]

People who want to stick with XP gotta get with the times, Vista is the way to go, I love the interface and everything about it.

 

[Finn]

Vista has serious problems with legacy business applications, mainly because of UAC. It's gaming performance is varying. Some games work excellent others not.

 

[hity645]

Ive been waiting for SP1 for Vista to roll out. I expected all the new issues that arouse and waited patiently. I loved Win98SE and didn't use 2000 at all and briefly had a run in with ME, but once I got my hands on XP I didn't try to cling to the past.

 

[CptFalcon]

I've had a few problems but nothing to cry home about and the only two games (2! OMG! ) that won't play work in the 32-bit version of it. Huh? Overall, it's a good OS and a helluva lot better than XP was before it came out.

 

[ICOM]

People that cry that Vista Sucks usually fall into 3 Categories

1) Gamers that expect top performance out of the OS while disregarding that's it's NEW
2) Users who expect there aging hardware to work flawlessly with the OS
3) Users who simply believe the OS should be leaps & bounds superior to its predecessor

-DarkLegacy

Good grief...

1. Vista isn't NEW anymore. It's newer than XP and that's all you can say about it. News flash! Newer does not always equal better.

2. Aging hardware? Any hardware developed during the DX9 era should work perfectly with Vista. Fast stuff that existed 12 - 18 months ago is still pretty fast stuff today.

3. Nobody is realistically expecting that. Everything works on XP. It's clean, stable, secure and FAST. Why in the fuk would I want to replace it for a bloated and problematic OS like Vista. Wake up!

I'll move to Vista if and when I NEED to. When more DX10 games are released that appeal to me, I'll consider it again. It's been over a year now and I'm not particularly impressed or excited about any DX10 games.

 

[osalcido]

With new drivers, it has been shown there is literally next to no (1-3%) performance difference between xp and vista in dx9....... so quit saying xp is SO much better

since when is next to no performance difference a good reason to "upgrade"?

 

[/dev/null]

Your post is moronic not because of your dislike for Vista, but for saying it's like ME. ME was unstable and prone to crashes and bluescreens. Vista is not.

It's like comparing a Camaro with a Mustang. Both are reliable and fast cars, but just because someone likes Fords doesn't mean the Camaro is a bad car. You just don't like it, thats all.

You're comparing a Mustang with a Yugo.

So you don't like Vista. We're happy for you. But to say it's another ME is where you come out as uninformed.

I don't know about that.....my wife (non technical user) had a laptop with vista (I have an identical laptop with ubuntu 7.10) and it crashed like 2-3x per week without her really doing anything to it.

it was SO bad that we shelled out $100 for a drive and $150 for XP PRO and it has been rock solid since.

 

[SockMan!]

Its complaints like this that always make me laugh. If you are having so many problems, then why in the hell did you deploy Vista on your network?

For the same reason why this thread exists; because soon we'll no longer be able to get XP on new machines - except for using old licences of course. Some of us will have to suck it up and go for Vista because we have no choice - whether we want to or not.

Of course, that person should have tested the OS further before deploying it for production if he's having that many problems. But it's impossible to test for everything; especially when it comes to small businesses. And some things just might not work at all.

In the near future, you won't be able to buy new machines with XP preinstalled. That's a potential problem where I work. We buy small batches of new Dell machines with XP preinstalled to slowly replace our aging workstation computers - most of which are still on Windows 2000. I'm afraid that we won't have an option for XP on our next batch of Dells.

I shudder to think about all the compatibility issues we will have - not to mention all the problems with supporting a mixed 2000/XP/Vista network and user resistance to the new OS. We've got a lot of old software, so compatibility is a necessity. Heck, some of our computers still use DOS or Windows NT (special purpose computers only, but still...)

An XP volume licence key looks awfully tempting right now.

 

[Slozz]

whatever everyone has to say, things, and we, need to move forward, its always been this way, its best to be this way, and it will continue to be.

 

[SockMan!]

I don't think anyone is saying that we shouldn't move forward. Otherwise, there would be a lot of people who say that Windows 98 is still good enough.

 

[Manaknight]

i read most of the threads but not all. my take is this...

I dual boot between both vista and xp. I don't hate vista, in fact i think it's pretty cool... However there are some things that I think microsoft needs to address to silence the people swearing it off.

First they did promise way more then they delivered. While i don't think this is a deal breaker, i think that they should be striving to meet the original vision of the OS to bring it up to speed as opposed to it being a minor upgrade.

Second they DO need to address performance issues of games. This was a serious concern to me when I was originally toying around with vista. Enabling dx10 should NOT decrease my performance by significant numbers on my computer (which is more than capable of vista). But games that run flawless on xp (lotro and crysis come to mind) slow down painfully on vista. To sell the O/S to gamers this should really be addressed. I genuinely think a rewrite of dx10 code is in order for its next release.

Third there needs to be a more concise pruning method for Vista. I think this would make the deal for a lot of people. Why not phase out XP but put out an official vista thin install option, basically to prune the vista kernal down to an xp setup. I don't think this is impossible since much of the operating system works in a compartmentalized manor. I think an option for a trim lean home computing o/s that has 64 bit as more than an afterthought would be won back with perhaps an automatic lean setup. Hell in xp you could get back the 98 gui, why not throw the same into vista.

I really think thats all they need to get this thing back on track. I mean what i said is in fact a lot of work, but this is a company with market dominance, plenty of finances to back it, and an increasing loss (albeit slowly) of share/sales to mac and open source platforms due to vista (well founded or not).

Personally i enjoy vista, having a 64 bit os i can actually get drivers sealed it. if you have the hardware for it, it's worth the trip i think, however that being said i won't leave my dual boot setup for a long time to come.

 

[ICOM]

At one time, this was new:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Ford_Pinto.jpg

Doesn't mean we all need to go out and get one although many people did. I remember seeing these Pinto's on the road back in the day. I'd laugh and think...suckers.

I don't think Vista is as big a bomb as the Pinto but I get the same laugh...

 

[TerranUp16]

That's Vistas whole problem right there and to me that aint ever acceptable, like with XP I can't help but think we're doing Microsoft's Beta (Alpha?) testing for them.

If we're doing anyone's beta/alpha testing, it's 3rd party software developers'- not MS's.

And in terms of the speed of Vista vs. the speed of XP, I have found Vista to be much more responsive and all-around faster- which was the last thing I expected.

 

[SockMan!]

Third there needs to be a more concise pruning method for Vista. I think this would make the deal for a lot of people. Why not phase out XP but put out an official vista thin install option, basically to prune the vista kernal down to an xp setup. I don't think this is impossible since much of the operating system works in a compartmentalized manor. I think an option for a trim lean home computing o/s that has 64 bit as more than an afterthought would be won back with perhaps an automatic lean setup. Hell in xp you could get back the 98 gui, why not throw the same into vista.

I think this would be a cool idea for a home user who just needs a basic install without the fluff. Many don't care about pretty GUIs or just prefer the old ones.

It made me think though. Why not take it a step further and make an OS for businesses that focuses on compatibility with old software? Like a "Windows for Legacy Systems/Software" or somesuch? Maybe even have the OS include some virtualization/emulator technology with preinstalled legacy OSes?

As much as I would love my workplace to have the latest and greatest software that's guaranteed compatible with Vista, I know it's not going to happen. And I know that many small businesses are in the same boat.

 

[vengence]

You realize this same exact thread was here when Win2K came out, and then XP, and now Vista, and when Windows7 comes out some day we'll have the ZOMG WINDOWS 7 SUCKS BALLS ITS A RESOURCE HOG!!!!!!!! VISTA FOREVER!!!!11111!!!111!1one.

Grow up. It is acceptable to use more resources on a newer OS to provide more features. This is not a sin. The average computing speed is higher. Do you really want a "NEW" OS that brags about being able to run on an XT? I love some of the new features in Vista like new "alt-tab" kind of stuff. 1-3% diffrence in speed with the latest drivers? Thats a joke of a diffrence. Thats like saying this car has 303 HP that one has 306HP, who cares? You'll never be able to notice that.

 

[gibber]

Wonder how many people who signed that petition have tried Vista lately- I haven't really had any issues w/it at all, and I went from XP Pro 32-bit to Vista Home Premium 64-bit. I also just find Vista to be a genuinely better OS all-around, with its primary problems arising from unfamiliarity- user unfamiliarity and software developer unfamiliarity (the new infrastructure for drivers and the like has required many companies to create entirely new code just for Vista, and they're still working the kinks out of those). Crap that attempts to further prolong the life of XP will only further delay rectification of Vista's software problems as developers continue to divide their resources between XP and Vista.

There's simply no NEED for most people to switch from XP to Vista. It is unfamiliar. It is less compatible. It runs games slower. And, who wants to buy a stripped down version without all the features? Even if you don't need Ultimate, it still is disappointing to get something less than the best, but, Ultimate is WAAAAY too expensive. Obviously, the main purpose of Vista is to simply make more $ for Microsoft. I remember when you used to buy one version of a program, you got newer versions for free, if Vista is fixing "problems" that XP has, then it should be a free upgrade.

 

[nirvana4all]

Cant find it, but is Windows 7 going to be only 64bit. Since we will be needing 64bit for the tech (ram, etc) by that time, are they gonna finally force people to bite the bullet and go 64 only (I was hoping they would do it w/ Vista).

 

[TerranUp16]

There's simply no NEED for most people to switch from XP to Vista. It is unfamiliar. It is less compatible. It runs games slower. And, who wants to buy a stripped down version without all the features? Even if you don't need Ultimate, it still is disappointing to get something less than the best, but, Ultimate is WAAAAY too expensive. Obviously, the main purpose of Vista is to simply make more $ for Microsoft. I remember when you used to buy one version of a program, you got newer versions for free, if Vista is fixing "problems" that XP has, then it should be a free upgrade.

You really don't need Ultimate, and as far as I can tell, it really isn't holding much back to get Home Premium... Still have DX10, still have Aero, still have a faster OS, still have superior crash recovery, still have a stabler OS (from what I have observed, the OS is inherently rock-stable- it takes 3rd party programs to make it unstable), etc...

And the main object of any project sold for $ is to make a profit for the parent company. Duh? But Vista isn't just a cash grab from MS. Is it worth upgrading to from XP on your current computer? Probably not- not yet anyway. But you already have XP installed on that computer. So then the issue becomes your next computer. Given a choice, I feel Vista offers the better choice (especially by the time of your next purchase).

 

[mdburkey]

There are far too many people on this forum that are quite obviously of the 16-22yr old "gamer" demographic. I'm sorry but in the real world, the gamers are in the distinct minority. The primary REAL WORLD large scale uses of PC's are for either business applications or as simple internet terminals. Even most teens I deal with think of PC's as very little more than an accessory they need to load their iPod!

I do IT support for several companies, sell PC's to individuals and support them, and I am also a software engineer who writes device drivers.

Out of all the systems I sell and support, perhaps 1 in 20 is EVER used to play a game. As a side effect, perhaps 2 in 20 of these units ever has a standalone video card -- the others ALL use onboard video. When using onboard video, Vista is sluggish unless you turn off the pretty effects. If you have a fast video card, Vista does tend to feel more responsive that XP at the UI level -- that said, the majority of machines sold today still do not fall into this category!

To make matters worse, for many business applications such as presentations, 2D charting, 2D CAD work, circuit layout, etc. Vista is absolutely ABYSMAL and *MUCH* slower than XP. This is all due to a design decision by Microsoft -- specifically they removed the the hardware accelleration of GDI functions from Vista. It is now all handled by a software layer. From a business perspective, this makes Vista a very bad choice. I've already mentioned the network headaches in previous posts and won't go into them again


So far, I have not had ANYONE request Vista and I have had numerous people pay me to go back and reload XP on their own machines. I have, to date, sold only two machines with Vista loaded -- which were for kids computers and I specifically suggested it because Vista DOES have much better parental control options than XP does. I have sold a ton of machines with Vista Business licences though -- but all of them were installed with XP Pro downgrades at the purchasers request.

The biggest problem with selling Vista is that it really does NOT offer that many improvements over XP. If there were things that you could NOT do in XP that you could do or do better in Vista, then it would be selling well. Unfortunately, there just aren't any real super selling points.

DX 10? Nope -- only matters to gamers, which ARE a small (albeit vocal) minority.

Security? Nope -- not compared to a cleanly installed, fully updated, locked down copy of XP (which, sadly, most are not -- but the ones I setup for people are, and I have almost zero problems with these units).

Stability? Nope -- not compared to a properly setup XP machine. If anything, most Vista boxes I have seen are LESS stable -- largely due "teething" problems with new drivers. These problems ARE getting fixed and it is getting better -- but this is definitely not a selling point. There are other weird issues with Vista that I doubt will ever get fixed just due to a code complexity standpoint (based on comments I have heard from inside the belly of the beast, the Vista code base is woefully out of control and there are far too many chunks of legacy code that they are basically afraid to touch for fear that they will break other things they can't predict).

The only two areas in Vista that I have seen REAL sellable improvements that are of benefit to the average home user are in the area of multiple account setup and parental controls. With Vista you can FINALLY setup limited accounts that actually almost work (I say almost, because there are still a lot of apps that don't -- but with some finagling you can still manage to permanently set a specific app to run as Admin from inside a restricted account). You also have at least some built-in parental controls and parental
monitoring capability. This IS sellable. Unfortunately, this also opens up another can of worms from a liability standpoint if you do advertise the feature and then some parent decides to sue you when their kid finds ways around the parental controls and manages to start surfing porn sites.

It's not that Vista is terrible, it's just that XP is too GOOD and Vista's improvements are heavily counterbalanced by its flaws.

 

[walwalka]

reason I use vista X64 is not only because I have 4GB of memory, it is because it works for everything i use work flawlessly. Another is that I like to use the hardware I play so much for, granted I did play a lot for my computer I still want to use my 4GB of memory and not just 1.5GB in widows xp with a game open. If you turn off the UAC it doesn't bother you sp just like windows xp.

 

[Cannydog]

People that cry that Vista Sucks usually fall into 3 Categories

1) Gamers that expect top performance out of the OS while disregarding that's it's NEW
2) Users who expect there aging hardware to work flawlessly with the OS
3) Users who simply believe the OS should be leaps & bounds superior to its predecessor

Ok, I'll address your points:
1. I've tried Vista for gaming, but that performance aspect is not what really puts me off.
2. I don't have "aging hardware", look at my sig, that's the hardware I was using.
3. I believe that an OS should function reasonably well on a basic level, that means it uses the "hardware" to support the software. Isn't that what an OS is supposed to do?

This is nothing new. Unless you are absolutely dumb or new to the WIndows OS, this is a repeating scenario that dates back to the beginning of Windows. Newer releases always have a wide range of problems. People praise how great Windows XP is. I will agree that it is indeed a great OS. However, with that said, Xp has been pounded on for many years to get it where it is today. When it first came out, XP was a flat out disaster. It was FAR worst than Vista is at this stage. ...<snip...

I have had a copy of almost every version of Windows since Windows 3.0 (excluding many of the server versions - though I even had a couple of those...). And how well I remember how unstable Windows used to be. But I got my first copy of XP in November of 2001. And I don't remember XP being anywhere near this bad. It did improve after SP1, but it wasn't "FAR worse than Vista is at this stage". In fact I didn't have severe issues with ME. I don't remember it being that unstable. Then again, I was conditioned by 95-98SE to accept the occasional crash.

Vista to me is the best OS they've come out with. ...<snip>... Driver updates from hardware I did have issues with before all run very well now. Overall, I'm very happy.

Part of my issues were with USB transfers. So I downloaded some hotfixes and some new drivers from Intel. This improved the situation some, but compared to XP the transfers are still very slow.

...<snip>. Nothing is wrong with Vista at this moment. Saying otherwise is only making a fool of yourself.

You say that and I can't help but feel the exact opposite. Saying "Nothing is wrong with Vista at this moment." Indicates to me that You, at the very least, don't use your computer the way I do. I mean that's the only plausible explanation for why you don't have "ANY" issue with Vista. Oh and my guess is that you don't have an XP machine to compare Vista's performance to as well.

My biggest complaint (there are others...) is that Vista is so slow in Disk to Disk Transfers. It literally takes longer for Vista to estimate the time it will need to transfer the files than it does for XP to actually move/copy them. Now to address this issue I've tried installing AHCI drivers, and tried emulating IDE. I've tried x64 and x86 versions of Ultimate. I've constantly used a Readyboost drive. In the last 9 months I've installed Vista about 6 times from scratch, so I could try different drivers. I've checked and rechecked every possible setting to get this hardware to work with Vista. And the only thing I haven't done was download that one RC of SP1, which MS decided to allow the "public" to try.

So please! Try not to exaggerate how "wonderful" Vista is around me. I'm just not going to believe you. I've been "informed" by my own experience and I'm not listening anymore.

 

[orkan]

Thats the thing that these vista lovers just don't understand. Vista is NOT the best operating system right now. XP Pro is.

Sure, vista has a few selling points. But they are ALL canceled out by the problems it has. Driver support is STILL in the toilet after how long???!??!!

I'll re-evaluate after SP1. The OS sucks right now. Period, the end. Only people saying otherwise are just spewing nonsense and pushing an initiative.

Until then... Vista can suck my dark spot.

 

[MC FLMJIG]

There are far too many people on this forum that are quite obviously of the 16-22yr old "gamer" demographic. I'm sorry but in the real world, the gamers are in the distinct minority. The primary REAL WORLD large scale uses of PC's are for either business applications or as simple internet terminals. Even most teens I deal with think of PC's as very little more than an accessory they need to load their iPod!

I do IT support for several companies, sell PC's to individuals and support them, and I am also a software engineer who writes device drivers.

Out of all the systems I sell and support, perhaps 1 in 20 is EVER used to play a game. As a side effect, perhaps 2 in 20 of these units ever has a standalone video card -- the others ALL use onboard video. When using onboard video, Vista is sluggish unless you turn off the pretty effects. If you have a fast video card, Vista does tend to feel more responsive that XP at the UI level -- that said, the majority of machines sold today still do not fall into this category!

To make matters worse, for many business applications such as presentations, 2D charting, 2D CAD work, circuit layout, etc. Vista is absolutely ABYSMAL and *MUCH* slower than XP. This is all due to a design decision by Microsoft -- specifically they removed the the hardware accelleration of GDI functions from Vista. It is now all handled by a software layer. From a business perspective, this makes Vista a very bad choice. I've already mentioned the network headaches in previous posts and won't go into them again


So far, I have not had ANYONE request Vista and I have had numerous people pay me to go back and reload XP on their own machines. I have, to date, sold only two machines with Vista loaded -- which were for kids computers and I specifically suggested it because Vista DOES have much better parental control options than XP does. I have sold a ton of machines with Vista Business licences though -- but all of them were installed with XP Pro downgrades at the purchasers request.

The biggest problem with selling Vista is that it really does NOT offer that many improvements over XP. If there were things that you could NOT do in XP that you could do or do better in Vista, then it would be selling well. Unfortunately, there just aren't any real super selling points.

DX 10? Nope -- only matters to gamers, which ARE a small (albeit vocal) minority.

Security? Nope -- not compared to a cleanly installed, fully updated, locked down copy of XP (which, sadly, most are not -- but the ones I setup for people are, and I have almost zero problems with these units).

Stability? Nope -- not compared to a properly setup XP machine. If anything, most Vista boxes I have seen are LESS stable -- largely due "teething" problems with new drivers. These problems ARE getting fixed and it is getting better -- but this is definitely not a selling point. There are other weird issues with Vista that I doubt will ever get fixed just due to a code complexity standpoint (based on comments I have heard from inside the belly of the beast, the Vista code base is woefully out of control and there are far too many chunks of legacy code that they are basically afraid to touch for fear that they will break other things they can't predict).

The only two areas in Vista that I have seen REAL sellable improvements that are of benefit to the average home user are in the area of multiple account setup and parental controls. With Vista you can FINALLY setup limited accounts that actually almost work (I say almost, because there are still a lot of apps that don't -- but with some finagling you can still manage to permanently set a specific app to run as Admin from inside a restricted account). You also have at least some built-in parental controls and parental
monitoring capability. This IS sellable. Unfortunately, this also opens up another can of worms from a liability standpoint if you do advertise the feature and then some parent decides to sue you when their kid finds ways around the parental controls and manages to start surfing porn sites.

It's not that Vista is terrible, it's just that XP is too GOOD and Vista's improvements are heavily counterbalanced by its flaws.

Excellent post.

I just bought a lappy and went back to XP. What a huge difference. Of course it came loaded with a ton of bloatware but I have used PC's with Vista and I really don't like them. I have downgraded a few and they simply feel so much faster. If you want pretty just customize it. I see no reason for Vista at the moment except for a few ppl.