Vista, Split from vista antivirus Options

[Seeker]

windows vista is the equivalent of windows ME

a big bloated useless piece of shitty broken software rushed out the door

since i work for mcafee, i say get mcafee virus scanner (not free though)

[impala454]

whats big and bloated and broken about it?

[Seeker]

whats big and bloated and broken about it?

1. Memory footprint is massive, Vista is usable on 1GB but realistically to get anything done you need 2GB

2. UAC is a royal pain in the ass, poorly implemented and poorly thought out

3. Game performance is sub-optimal, below that of games on XP especially games that are memory intensive. (see first bullet point)

4. User interface is poorly thought out, for example...
- Flip 3D obscures the windows you're trying to switch between therefore being all but useless.
- Vista's control panel is a mess, good luck trying to find the settings you want.
- Sidebar and "gadgets" is very poorly done and thought out. For example, the clock gadget uses up significant processor time. It just gets in the way.

5. Vista EATS the battery on laptops, whereas with a laptop installed with XP or a Macbook with OS X battery life is significantly better.

6. Network file transfer speeds are horrible in Vista compared to XP

7. Boot time for my machine has tripled with Vista compared to XP

8. Vista is designed to restrict access to your video and music files, a.k.a. broken by design

And that's just a few.

[impala454]

1. Memory footprint is massive, Vista is usable on 1GB but realistically to get anything done you need 2GB

I agree 100% on a fresh install right out of the box. But, exactly like windows xp's release, it took some tweaking and turning off of un-necessary features to make it hum. I think you'd notice it gets much lighter on its feet if you take a few minutes to tweak it.

2. UAC is a royal pain in the ass, poorly implemented and poorly thought out

agreed, but easily turned off with a couple of clicks.

3. Game performance is sub-optimal, below that of games on XP especially games that are memory intensive. (see first bullet point)

all games are memory intensive. I honestly can't say i've noticed this at all.

4. User interface is poorly thought out, for example..
- Flip 3D obscures the windows you're trying to switch between therefore being all but useless.

I find it pretty useless as well, but I don't see how this means the OS is broken or bloated.

- Vista's control panel is a mess, good luck trying to find the settings you want.

it's just different than you're used to. you can set it back to the old way if you want. and how would you arrange it to improve it?

- Sidebar and "gadgets" is very poorly done and thought out. For example, the clock gadget uses up significant processor time. It just gets in the way.

I haven't seen the clock gadget use up significant processor time. perhaps you can paste your CPU usage or something. anything else besides the clock? i guess clock proc time = "Sidebar and "gadgets" is very poorly done and thought out"

5. Vista EATS the battery on laptops, whereas with a laptop installed with XP or a Macbook with OS X battery life is significantly better.

it's pretty easy for a macbook with OS X to run better, considering the people who designed the OS had only a miniscule amount of hardware to work around. otherwise, I don't have a laptop so I can't really speak for laptop battery life. Even so, how much difference is it? 50%? 10%?

6. Network file transfer speeds are horrible in Vista compared to XP

can't say I've noticed this. at least, on transferring large files from a MCE2005 comp to a vista x64 comp. how bad is it for you?

7. Boot time for my machine has tripled with Vista compared to XP

so, just to guess, your machine went from say... 20-30 second boot, to 1-1.5 minute boot? i'd say you're either being melodramatic or you have something seriously wrong with your comp.

8. Vista is designed to restrict access to your video and music files,

And that's just a few.

how does it restrict access? i have lots of music and video files and have had no problems accessing any of them.

and by all means, keep listing the probs. I personally went back to xp because there were some x64 driver issues with the USB headset I use. and I'm not saying vista is some grand awesome thing, but I don't think it's as terrible as you're making it out to be. I have only used the x64 version, so maybe it makes some huge difference and that's why I'm not seeing the same things you are.

[Seeker]

9. DVD playback in Windows Media Player or Media Center will only play in interlaced mode making it VERY ugly

10. The "open with" feature is gone. When I use to right click on a data file, you can click "open with" and choose a new program to open the file or pick something on the list of applications you've used before. That list of recent applications for opening data files is gone which is very frustrating

11. Power save settings are hidden in a deep mess, and changes to the settings aren't saved

12. Minor changes in hardware will sometimes prevent Vista from booting up.

13. This mainly affects businesses but there are limits on how Vista can be used under Virtualization

14. Lack of stable drivers

15. Firefox is hosed on Vista, it does not remember your settings, turned off toolbars come back, bookmarks won't bookmark. This is firefox's fault for hardcoding system paths, but it's still enough to keep me from using Vista

16. VS 2003 won't run in Vista and VS 2005 has plenty of problems

17. SQL server won't run on Vista

18. Since Firefox doesn't work you're forced to use IE7, which freezes constantly under Vista

19. Once activated on one computer Vista will refuse to activiate on any other.

20. The scrollwheel on a mouse causes the area where the user last clicked to scroll, regardless of the mouse's actual position on the screen.

21. Major computer manufacturers are now reverting to Windows XP due to customer demand. Companies that produce games recommend sticking with XP.

Want more?

[impala454]

9- haven't watched a dvd in vista, but to me that's a media player problem, not vista

10- didn't pay attention to this... although i know in old versions of windows you had to hold the ctrl key or something to get this to come up

11- i changed my hard disk and monitor power settings, which were in exactly the same place in vista as they were in xp, and the settings were saved just fine.

12- never saw this, with vista on 2 different PCs

13- it's not limited, it just doesn't allow you to activate multiple copies, which is what the license agreement has always been, including xp

14- has nothing to do with vista, and everything to do with the hardware companies

15- again has nothing to do with vista and everything to do with the developers of firefox

16- haven't tried VS2003 on vista, but VS2005 worked just fine for me, compiling C# applications, C++ applications, as well as ASP.NET projects.

17- while I haven't put SQL enterprise on it, I did install the SQLEXPRESS version with studio 05 and it worked fine

18- never had any freezing problems with IE in vista

19- working as intended. same as OS-X and XP

20- my co-worker here has vista on his laptop, this doesn't occur on it

21- i just went to dell, hp, and sony and clicked to the first computer i saw, all three had vista as the default OS.

keep em coming though

[Seeker]

i like how you just dismiss each point without any thought and just pull some random crap out of your ass and little tidbits from your personal experience

just because you may have not experienced some of these bugs does not mean they don't exist, everything i've listed has been widely reported by thousands of customers

dell bringing back XP:
http://news.com.com/Dell+brings+back+XP+on...l?tag=nefd.lede

i'll list some more when i get chance and i'm not at work

[impala454]

lol i love how you see this article and take "Dell said, it is adding XP Home and Professional as options on four Inspiron laptop models and two Dimension desktops. " and twist it into "Major computer manufacturers are now reverting to Windows XP due to customer demand."

[impala454]

i like how you just dismiss each point without any thought and just pull some random crap out of your ass and little tidbits from your personal experience

and i like how you make each point by just pulling some random crap out of your ass and little tidbits from your personal experience

just because you may have not experienced some of these bugs does not mean they don't exist,

and just because you see them doesn't mean they're rampant problems

everything i've listed has been widely reported by thousands of customers

problems are the only thing that get reported. do you think people go back and report to microsoft, hey my scroll wheel works great, just FYI. if there is only "thousands" of people having problems I'd call that pretty damn awesome.

[Seeker]

as usual, impala sucking from the teat of microsoft, fanb0i

[impala454]

as usual, lance having some personal vendetta against microsoft.

[zetec]

1. Memory footprint is massive, Vista is usable on 1GB but realistically to get anything done you need 2GB

true

2. UAC is a royal pain in the ass, poorly implemented and poorly thought out

true but easily turned off

3. Game performance is sub-optimal, below that of games on XP especially games that are memory intensive. (see first bullet point)

Not if you have a DX10 card. Those are still relatively new though. This won't be an issue much longer.

4. User interface is poorly thought out, for example...
- Flip 3D obscures the windows you're trying to switch between therefore being all but useless.
- Vista's control panel is a mess, good luck trying to find the settings you want.
- Sidebar and "gadgets" is very poorly done and thought out. For example, the clock gadget uses up significant processor time. It just gets in the way.

true, although the control panel can be fixed.

5. Vista EATS the battery on laptops, whereas with a laptop installed with XP or a Macbook with OS X battery life is significantly better.

UNTRUE.
I actually got significantly better battery life on my laptop, which is definately saying something since it's a 3.4ghz P4 (not a p4M -- the desktop version -- that requires a 150W power supply). I normally get 90-100 minutes (yeah, it's a "gas-guzzler"), with vista and MY POWER PROFILE CORRECTLY CONFIGURED, I could get around 120-even-140 minutes. still weak by normal standards, but good for me.


I don't feel like adressing the other 20 of these, aside from the one where firefox works fine for me, and everybody else I know.


To sum it up, I'd be using vista more if I had better hardware, and I'd be using it as my primary windows OS after SP1 comes out.


i need to install ubuntu fiesty

[schwab]

firefox is normal for me on vista

[Rocky]

I like how the Vista backlash has many people admitting that XP really isn't that bad afterall.....it just isn't idiot proof.

[Seeker]

I like how the Vista backlash has many people admitting that XP really isn't that bad afterall.....it just isn't idiot proof.

service packs make xp bearable

4 years from now when vista SP2 is out i might start using vista

[chook]

I used 2000 until 2005. Lance is right with SP2 making most of XP bearable. I tried vista and its a bloated piece of crap, but will probably be worked on. The problem is that MS puts out fairly unstable software. I would be using a mac OS except that I am really stuck in the Windows rut.

[impala454]

I like how the Vista backlash has many people admitting that XP really isn't that bad afterall.....it just isn't idiot proof.

to me it's like domestic vs foreign cars. domestic cars really are just as good, you just gotta give em a little more TLC sometimes

[Seeker]

Good post on slashdot:

Is Vista in trouble? Why wouldn't it be? Even if Microsoft gave the thing away for free, it totally ignores the fact that there's an enormous cost [auckland.ac.nz] to upgrading. Microsoft doesn't need a fire sale, it needs to be paying people to install this thing.

Let's run down the usual suspects of people who upgrade and see how they feel:

* Business users hate it. The hardware required to run it cost a lot of money when multiplied by tens, hundreds, or thousands of employees. Add to that the training costs, the support costs, the deployment costs, and so on ad nauseum, and the business decision easily becomes a no-brainer. And for what? Beefed up "security" that causes your user base to go nuts answering "Allow or deny" dialog boxes?
* Gamers hate it. It just plain doesn't run with the hardware that's out right now. I really think that Vista is trying to be the proverbial egg that comes before widespread manufacturer support (the proverbial chicken), but it's just not happening. Every gamer I know is avoiding Vista like the plague. As long as gamers aren't begging for Vista support in their high-end components, manufacturers are still going to continue to be reluctant.
* Speaking of manufacturers, it's obvious that they hate it, too. When I tried Vista for a week a while back (not the beta, the so-called real version after launch), two things didn't work. My Creative SoundBlaster Live! card and my nVidia video card. To be fair, the latter technically worked, but some of its higher-end functionality didn't. We're not talking about little no-name manufacturers here or bizarre equipment, we're talking about common cards from major manufacturers. Have you even seen the hoops that hardware manufacturers have to jump through to comply with Vista's outrageous requirements?
* The emerging home entertainment market hates it. Let's not mince words: One of Vista's primary design goals is Digital Rights "Management," keeping these people from doing what they want to do. Why would buy software that takes functionality away!!?

I could go on, but you get the point. Is Vista in trouble? You bet. Add to all of the above the competition that it faces from various Linux distributions that are easier than ever to install and use, products like Mac OS, clever new projects such as ReactOS [reactos.org], and even its own predecessor! and it becomes clear that Microsoft should be praying that people pirate it, because that's the only way it's going to make any kind of splash when all is said and done.

Don't get me wrong, it won't die completely, any more than Windows ME is dead. But in the annals of operating systems, my money is that it will be merely a blip on the screen. If Microsoft is smart, it should be working on adding features to its operating system, making it faster and more powerful and easier to use. It should be fighting with us against DRM, not against us by crippling their software with it.

Personally, I think that Microsoft is not very smart, but who knows, I guess we'll see. At any rate, after giving it a week to try to convince me that it's not as bad as everyone says it is, I was very disappointed in it and won't be running it anytime in the forseeable future.

[zetec]

i stopped reading slashdot. 8 stories a day vs 1254254523523534 stories a day on Digg, all of which are the same stories (and they hit the web a helluva lot quicker on Digg)

[Seeker]

slashdot posts some stories that the digg bury brigade buries

i hated digg at first because of the dumbass name, but it's grown on me... but now my fondness of digg is starting to wear off

everything political gets buried while mac shit and omgwtflolbbq gets dugg

[zetec]

yeah, the digg mafia has a bit too slim of tastes nowadays, not to mention that you see shit that's older than the internet itself get reposted on a weekly basis.

[jwttu]

and why did they change the menus in office 2007, the ribbon is so confusing

[impala454]

* Business users hate it. The hardware required to run it cost a lot of money when multiplied by tens, hundreds, or thousands of employees. Add to that the training costs, the support costs, the deployment costs, and so on ad nauseum, and the business decision easily becomes a no-brainer.

most businesses don't upgrade, no matter how good the new upgrade is. business is all about cost, and "if it aint broke, don't fix it" is the tune that 99% of businesses out there operate on. it has nothing to do with vista itself.

Gamers hate it. It just plain doesn't run with the hardware that's out right now. I really think that Vista is trying to be the proverbial egg that comes before widespread manufacturer support (the proverbial chicken), but it's just not happening. Every gamer I know is avoiding Vista like the plague. As long as gamers aren't begging for Vista support in their high-end components, manufacturers are still going to continue to be reluctant.

believe it or not (slashdot), hard core gamers don't rule the home PC industry. and even in that small market, the manufacturers are scrambling to be the first to have DX10 supported hardware/drivers. they're loving it because in that hardcore market, they know people will ditch their old $500 video card to go get a new $500 DX10 card.

Speaking of manufacturers, it's obvious that they hate it, too. When I tried Vista for a week a while back (not the beta, the so-called real version after launch), two things didn't work. My Creative SoundBlaster Live! card and my nVidia video card. To be fair, the latter technically worked, but some of its higher-end functionality didn't. We're not talking about little no-name manufacturers here or bizarre equipment, we're talking about common cards from major manufacturers. Have you even seen the hoops that hardware manufacturers have to jump through to comply with Vista's outrageous requirements?

"when i tried vista for a week a while back". hmm.. i think it was a long while back, because its been several months since the problems with creative and nvidia were fixed (by those companies respectively). the "hoops" that hardware manufacturers have to jump through are new APIs for these devices, making the driver developers for these companies get off their ass and do some work for a change. It's been the hardware companies which have been slow to the punch. besides, what competing OS has better driver support? OSX with its four different computers it has to run on? Linux where you have to search high and low and compile shit and type 40 commands into a CLI to get your sound card to work?

* The emerging home entertainment market hates it. Let's not mince words: One of Vista's primary design goals is Digital Rights "Management," keeping these people from doing what they want to do. Why would buy software that takes functionality away!!?

every single person I know that has a home theater PC loves vista. the media center interface on it is slick as hell and a nice improvement over MCE2005 (although this one was nice too). I still don't understand what these people are bitching about with DRM. I had no problems whatsoever playing any media. I'd be interested to hear specific examples instead of just keeping on hearing "OMG i cant play my musix on vista!".

Personally, I think that Microsoft is not very smart

yeah... save for the fact that they're pretty much the most successful & profitable software company in existence.

[schwab]

anyone know if you can get office 07 from tech?

[impala454]

btw just a little tidbit, you can run office 2007 on xp (not sure if people knew that or not).

[Hartmann]

I have not used Vista past some of the original Longhorn previews so I can't discuss the issues but I think that we are seeing a huge move by consumers to drive the market, not vice-versa.

most businesses don't upgrade, no matter how good the new upgrade is. business is all about cost, and "if it aint broke, don't fix it" is the tune that 99% of businesses out there operate on. it has nothing to do with vista itself.

I agree that this is true for OS and system upgrades but for other software I think that it depends on what it is.

Options are great, this is where OS X, Linux, etc. are handy, if people don't want to use Windows, they don't have to. Microsoft is profitable but I think they are still struggling to figure out what their core business is going to be in 10-15 years. Sure the OS, but is that where they've made their money in the last few years? Not really.

Bill Gates is set, but I think that Microsoft, with one big failure, could end up not existing, no matter how much money they have. It takes a lot to support their operations and their stock is a good indicator of how people feel about them.

[impala454]

Options are great, this is where OS X, Linux, etc. are handy, if people don't want to use Windows, they don't have to.

in the consumer market perhaps, but even then you wont find the average consumer switching to OSX or linux. they wont take the time to learn it, or wont spend the money to buy a new mac. businesses definitely wont switch very often, for the reasons i stated above. "if it aint broke dont fix it". people wont invest the time and money required to teach all of their employees new systems. sure its easy for people like us to learn, but for people in non-technical jobs, its like trying to teach calculus to a monkey.

Microsoft is profitable but I think they are still struggling to figure out what their core business is going to be in 10-15 years. Sure the OS, but is that where they've made their money in the last few years? Not really.

yeah they make a lot of their money off office, which will take a lot to pry out of the business market. i'd imagine it would be difficult to make money off of any OS anyhow... as it's not something people run out and buy every day. their OS sales are a much higher percentage of OEM rather than off the shelf.

Bill Gates is set, but I think that Microsoft, with one big failure, could end up not existing, no matter how much money they have. It takes a lot to support their operations and their stock is a good indicator of how people feel about them.

I think it would take a lot more than one big failure to make the company "not exist". There are too many key products and customer loyalty for that to happen. And their stock... hasn't been higher in the past five years than it is right now.

[Seeker]

personally, everyone i know has been switching to os x instead of upgrading to vista

[Hartmann]

in the consumer market perhaps, but even then you wont find the average consumer switching to OSX or linux. they wont take the time to learn it, or wont spend the money to buy a new mac. businesses definitely wont switch very often, for the reasons i stated above. "if it aint broke dont fix it". people wont invest the time and money required to teach all of their employees new systems. sure its easy for people like us to learn, but for people in non-technical jobs, its like trying to teach calculus to a monkey.

I think the strides that Linux and OS X have taken in the last few years makes changing very, very easy. My girlfriend, who is somewhat computer-savvy figured out OS X in about 3 days. She figured out my Linux box in a week. Sure, she doesn't know every little thing, but she knows how to get around in the OS. My mom was able to use my Macbook Pro the first day I showed it to her, and she knows next to nothing about computers..

yeah they make a lot of their money off office, which will take a lot to pry out of the business market. i'd imagine it would be difficult to make money off of any OS anyhow... as it's not something people run out and buy every day. their OS sales are a much higher percentage of OEM rather than off the shelf.

I think that Office is a key staple for MS and some of the enterprise stuff for it is amazing, however, most companies don't upgrade for the reason you stated, so those features are never seen. If MS changed some of their licensing schemes I think that we'd see their continued sales increase. They seem to be thinking of Google as serious competition, which in reality, I don't think they are. The problem is that MS doesn't have a core business to protect, so they are trying to protect all fronts from a potential loss to Google. They need to focus and blow Google out of the water.

I think it would take a lot more than one big failure to make the company "not exist". There are too many key products and customer loyalty for that to happen. And their stock... hasn't been higher in the past five years than it is right now.

Well, I should have put small failures leading to a large failure. I know that their stock hasn't been higher and that's my point, people are pleased with them right now, but what happens if Vista doesn't take off in the next year? What if the adoption of Office 2007 isn't as widespread as predicted?

I am not disagreeing with you really at all, I just think that MS needs to refocus, they seem spread thin and it's wearing on them. Google is in the same boat IMO.


About what Lance just said, a few of my friends use OS X now, but what I think is interesting is the fact that UT has been slowly switching a lot of their labs to OS X with only a few PCs in them. Not really sure why they are doing it, just an observation my girlfriend made.

[Mommy]

Im interested in upgrading to Vista, but I dont want to run the risk of screwing up the install and reformatting my drives. Any tips? What would happen if I installed Vista on one drive and kept XP on the other. I really dont know anything at all about OS installs. Could I switch between the two OS's if I did this? Do I run the risk of losing my 140 gigs of music if I were to install Vista? My music is on the same drive as XP. So couldnt I just do the safe thing and install it on the other drive?

[Seeker]

due to the DRM included with vista your music files may fail to play on vista

[Mommy]

due to the DRM included with vista your music files may fail to play on vista

thats why I wanted the option to use XP or Vista. Can that be done. Cant I install Vista to where it will ask me on startup if I want to use Vista or XP?

[impala454]

personally, everyone i know has been switching to os x instead of upgrading to vista

how exactly do you switch from windows to OSX? The only way I've seen that I can switch to OSX is to use the pirated copy, which is extremely buggy, or purchase a whole new apple computer.

due to the DRM included with vista your music files may fail to play on vista

I still don't get this. I honestly don't. So what you're saying is if I have Vista as my OS, open up media player (or even winamp) and attempt to play a mp3 I have, it may fail to play? I know we've been through this, but I, nor anyone I know with Vista installed, have seen this behavior. Are you saying it's only on files ripped with media player? or any file ripped using any program, so long as the OS is vista? It sounds to me like it's probably a bunch of people with ITunes or some paid music service that are having problems, and if that's the case, it sounds to me more like either a media player problem, or problem with that particular service not supporting vista as of yet.

[schwab]

due to the DRM included with vista your music files may fail to play on vista

all my songs work on my xp and vista computers....without a problem or doing anything

[zetec]

MP3s got no drm

nor FLAC or OGG

lance, wtf you playing WMAs/AACs? nobody uses those.

[schwab]

the music one is complete crap...im curious if lance has even seen this happen or just read it somewhere

[zetec]

thats why I wanted the option to use XP or Vista. Can that be done. Cant I install Vista to where it will ask me on startup if I want to use Vista or XP?

yeah, at least the business version will save your old install, as long as you choose the options to do so during the install (ie, let it move your xp stuff to windows.old, etc.)

couldn't say for sure if the home versions allow this, but i'd be surprised if they didn't.

[Mommy]

yeah, at least the business version will save your old install, as long as you choose the options to do so during the install (ie, let it move your xp stuff to windows.old, etc.)

couldn't say for sure if the home versions allow this, but i'd be surprised if they didn't.

I have XP Pro. Does that make a difference. Oh and how can I say this? hmm... What if (key word if) the copy of Windows is minutely less than legitimate? Would that make a difference. You know, just curious.

[Jim]

Aren't they getting rid of the DRM?

[Seeker]

apple is getting rid of the drm in their aac files on itunes

[Jim]

And Microsoft turned around and said the same thing, IIRC.

[zetec]

apple is getting rid of the drm in their aac files on itunes

only on EMI artists, and only for an extra $0.30

and jessica, yeah, that won't matter. basically it just edits your boot.ini whatnots. your XP install will be completely intact.