Intel Hates Vista, and So Do I (Mostly)
July 1, 2008 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Trends
You can be sure that a lot of people will be writing about how Intel “backstabbed” Microsoft by refusing to upgrade its workstations to Vista, but here’s my take on this development.
Imagine using a pretty powerful XPS M1330, only to find that, thanks to Vista, thing are still slow. I’d understand if it takes forever to render a computer animation, or to compute the value of pi to the 3,000th decimal point, but taking a minute to start up and shut down? C’mon!
To Vista’s credit though, there are some decent improvements in functionality. The search, which mimics Mac OS X’s spotlight, is much faster for instance. Windows staples like Control Panel are also much easier to navigate, and Vista’s graphics are much more welcome than XP’s “Fisher Price” look.
But please, if you come out with a “next-generation” OS that makes it tough even for top-of-the-line machines, you can expect everyone to complain. Even if Microsoft allegedly formulated Vista to boost Intel’s bottom line (by forcing consumers to upgrade their hardware like processors), I can’t expect Intel to support an OS that represents a step backward for Microsoft.
To anyone who also uses Vista and shares my pain, I recommend downloading Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (434.5 MB). It may not fix everything that’s wrong with Vista, but it does make the experience a bit more bearable.
Intel really does have a valid claim, though. MS changed the ‘management’ of the OS so significantly that it has to have a huge impact on IT pros everywhere. I think the changes to Control Panel were more drastic in the move from XP to Vista than they were from 3.1 to 95!
Some of the changes really appear boneheaded… like changing “Add/Remove Programs”. I get lost every time I look for how to remove an app!
Thankfully, most of my work is done on my MacBookPro, though.
It’s very funny though, to see people with brandnew fast laptops cursing and sweating while my old 400 MHz pentium with Linux is so much more responsive.
Imagine Linux on such fast iron….
Douglas: In a certain way, Vista is actually sucky enough to make me regret buying that XPS. But it’s only the OS mind you, not the hardware.
Aar: Hmmm… how easy would it be to turn an XPS M1330 into a Linux machine?
Thanks to the “live cd” phenomenon it’s very easy to test Linux on any hardware: just download the live cd from Ubuntu or others and boot from it.
You’ll have a functional Linux machine without installing anything on your disk (yet).
It will be a bit slower because of running from CD, but probably still a lot better than Vista.
If all hardware functions fine with the live CD, you can click the install icon on the desktop to get rid of Vista. Or minimalise it’s disk usage.
Success!
BTW, there is a nice post on the Ubuntu forums on this particular Dell XPSM1330
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/InstallingUbuntuOnADellXPSM1330
Aar: Hmmm… very tempting Arr. I’ll try it out over this long weekend. Wish me luck!