I Ain’t Switching Back to Windows XP
July 18, 2007 by Milo Riano
Filed under Computers
It is really funny how bad mouthing Windows Vista travels the internet with so many approvals. Chris Pirillo wrote he was breaking up with Windows vista with the following comments:
My scanner doesn’t really work (Hewlett-Packard Laserjet 3052). HP hasn’t caught up with support yet, and software updates won’t be available until SP1 time-frame. The software works like a charm in XP – amazingly well, as a matter of fact.
Windows Movie Maker crashes on a regular basis.
My IPFax software doesn’t work (the driver will likely never be updated to be Vista-compliant). Never, EVER caused me a problem in XP.I need this software to work, and dual-booting to use this is not an option.
I still can’t get my Lifecam to work, but wound up purchasing the vastly superior Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision instead (which puts Microsoft’s new webcam software AND hardware series to shame).
On the same machine (AMD Quad FX), XP trumps Vista in terms of performance. I don’t have specific benchmarks on hand, but I can tell you the difference is quite palpable. This is even with most of Vista’s eye candy tuned to a dull roar. We’ll see if it runs just as quickly when everything’s reinstalled there. I only discovered this after rebooting to try my scanner in XP – blazing differences, similar tasks.
NVIDIA chipsets and video cards. Need I say more?
I simply can’t get to my OS X machine from Vista (or mount a WebDAV server).
I am not breaking up with Windows Vista because of pathetic excuses and finger pointing. If your vendos do not support Windows Vista then blame them for their poor handling of the situation. Vendors had enough time to test their hardware on Windows Vista and submit to Microsoft their updated driver for inclusion. I don’t know why Windows Vista would crash with Movie Maker. I just viewed a video presentation which was a product of hundreds of hours on Windows Vista Movie Maker. My boss said he didn’t encounter any problems; come to think of it, he is technically competent. WebDAV server was reported to run right after installing the Office 2003 components.
I am happy with my Windows Vista and problems do arise, but none that can make me go back to Windows XP.
I agree, so much blame is put on Microsoft for vendors not getting their act together with drivers etc. Even Apple not having a working version of i(DRM)Tunes was reported as a Vista failing. Hello Apple has plenty of resources to get their software to work with the latest OS release of the most popular desktop operating system!
On Windows Movie Maker I’ve found it to be quite reliable on my machine but did find one bug which caused it to crash. Details for those interested: If you add a video clip and mute the sound when you try to render the video it fails and crashes the program. As a work around you simply turn the volume of the audio you dont want to nothing and it works fine.
I hear this a lot too. It’s just reactionary nonsense from people’s inertia. I find so much in vista that’s a huge step-up, plus way more stability than i’ve had for years (as long as I keep away from that cupertino company’s software, shudder)
Vista has its faults, but it’s not the horror story most people make it out to be. True, it needs a bit more care than XP in optimizing performance, but thats because the OS is still relatively new. Once more people familiarize themselves with it and once SP1 comes out (lol!), I think it should be okay.
My main points of contention with vista (as far as I am concerned) are (1) it doesnt get along with my home network. Sometimes file transfers to and from other machines (that are XP) dont happen when I want them to. (2) the defragger totally sucks. Who the heck came up with it? Anyway, I have Diskeeper Pro installed on the notebook now, and it works fantastic. It defrags faster and *shows* me what’s going on. Its autodefrag is also better than in Vista, so all is not lost on the defrag front (infact, much is gained with Diskeeper).
The lack of appropriate drivers is strictly a vendor issue. It is ridiculous to blame MSFT for that as a lot of people seem to be doing.
So, yeah, all in all, if you have good hardware, Vista is easy to get used to. Just dont try running it on a P-III 500 MHz and then whine about it.
I tried Vista out for a few days on my laptop with 600+/- MB Ram and it was ridiculous. I decided that I liked the Vista concept so much that I would buy 2 sticks of 1G Ram and see how it did. All other hardware on the laptop is accepting. WOW! It is amazing the difference the 2G upgrade makes on Vista. It is a great OS and although I had issues finding Vista compatible drivers for my products I use, I did find them….. and that was with the help of Vista’s “Solution Finder”. Go figure. I like Vista– And I was one of those sceptacle people, mainly because of the hardware upgrading needed. But hey, technology is advancing, and so of course, you need the system to advance to handle too.
Does it still get infested by spyware? Does Microsoft still need to patch it every month? Do you need an anti-virus? Does it break software? Does it still rely heavily on ActiveX? Does it use alot of memory? etc. etc. etc. The answer to everyone is yes. You see, Windows is Windows. And crap is crap. Somehow Windows and crap seem to fit together pretty good. Switch to Linux or Mac and save yourself alot of headaches.
I wonder why Vista makes it is so difficult to perform a simple operation like moving a few files from one directory to another. Is there a simple way to perform this task that I am overlooking?
Rob, Dave, Lavinia – you rock. Vista should not be blamed and instead use the operating system to its full potential.
Jason – you too! I’m glad you are getting the hang of Windows Vista
TS – you obviously know nothing about what you’re talking about. See the reports and feast yourself on how pathetic MAC security is.
Walt – I don’t feel the same way.
Walt: What are you talking about? Copying files from one place to another is simple and I’ve not encountered a single problem. What problems have you had?
TS: 1. Spyware exists for windows as most people use it and what’s the point of infecting platforms that have so little uptake. As for getting infested Vista has built in steps to defend this as well as many free additions, however the best defence is education on how to identify trustworthy software.
2. Micorsoft provide updates on a regular basis as do most other software vendors just Mircosoft do it more regularily hence why Vista security respoonse is better than Mac’s and Linux.
3. No matter what OS you run if you don’t have anit virus you are just being ignorant. The worlds first virus was written for a Mac and the more popular the OS gets the more they will become targeted by viruses.
4. No it doesn’t break software. Some crappy software not designed correctly to work on it may break.
5. Be specific, what’s wrong with ActiveX it’s better than Java. Even the original designers have admitted Java failed to live up to it’s expectations.
6. Woop de doo, you can run Linux on 256MB of RAM, if you run any demaning App on any PC such as Video rendering, Photoshop, 3D modeling, Games etc you need a lot of RAM anyway so what the problem?
Why don’t you stick to the “Ooh my Mac is so pretty argument” and us Vista users will leave you to rub yourself off against your latest overpriced Macbook.
“If your vendos do not support Windows Vista then blame them for their poor handling of the situation.”
Wow sounds just like that Linux debate I that pops up every other week, he he he.
Walt,
Unfurtunately as my dad always told me about my old car, the same applies to windows, it doesn’t matter how much you polish a turd, it’s still a turd
Paul
So being a Vista user will make me like Rob – Angry and Defensive… No Thanks, I’ll live in my happy Linux world.
Like you wouldn’t be defensive if I wrote a bunch of stupid and incorrect reasons why I think Linux sucks.
Hi , this is not a flame ;-)
basically I absolutely do not care which OS I´m using. my opinion so far:
with vista you CAN NOT do serious work.
I´m using gentoo now since 3 years to operate our root servers (with virtualized domains and so on so…) , also we have 2 SBS with MSSQL 2005 Servers and right now I have to program a scientific opengl-application under vista and visual studio (which is one of the best IDEs I know so far…) so lets say basically, I´m fit in working with linux AND windows) I like the look and feel in vista BUT as soon as you start “working” with vista and do not just play around and watch your high-resolution party pictures of last weekend, you quite fast realize that vista is only just nice looking and thats it.
there is no major benefit in using vista.
beside my $soft PC, I have a suse 10.3 until now nearly everything what I need works out of the box. I´m pretty sure that for 99% of my problems with vista there is an easy solution BUT under linux I can inquire EACH byte of source code, if I´m facing a problem. plus , if I want, I can get GB of logfiles to pin down a problem “on my own”, by changing a line in an defined config file. I know you can read these in several blogs but right now I´m really could need this features… in the moment I´m trying to make vista to handle webdav properly (come on this is not really a new technology….) and the only way, to find out the reason or bug, is searching the web for a solution (thats why I´m here right now… ;-). no logs. nothing. just $soft´s “this is not working”-blabla. Or can someone tell me why I can not open a webdav folder per double left click, but with right and open I can access it ??? with XP no problems . ah yes: since 1 week vista all the time wants to format my dvd´s (even an original microsoft SBS 2003 ;-)) because it thinks its an empty volume.. but when I do an rightclick and search I can access the content without any problem… (unisono web hint: reinstall vista…) and oh suddenly my search function in the start menu delivers me crap and dead links… but wenn I go to programs folder I can start the applications without a problem (unisono web hint: reinstall vista…) I want to install additional windows functions and features like telnet (for accessing some routers..) not possible. vista just tells me that “there was an error” reason: unknown. and so on…
on the other hand (very nescessary) vista thinks it has to ask me twice and triple if I really want do this and that (so after some time you turn off >>every security feature
I just bought a HP with an AMD dual core processor, 2 gig of memory and a 160 gig hard drive. It has vista home addition on it. Why is it so slow? Overall, I kinda like the vista look and feel but with the default (store) settings it’s so slow. How can I speed it up?
I absolutely HATE windows vista. It was supposed to backup my files in windows old. NOT. I have lost everything and I cannot uninstall vista to get my programs back. I cannot find help to get it off my computer. It states to reload my old program yet vista won’t let me because it is an old program (go figure). I cannot get help anywhere. Does anyone out there know how to get my old programs back?