What's Wrong with Vista?

[JoeyGee]

I'm not trying to start a war, or defend Microsoft, but after working with Vista for a few weeks now (never having touched it before--I still support XP at work, and don't "play" with PC's at home much) I have had no issues, and fail to see what all the negative comments are about.

As a disclaimer, I am an IT Pro, and have worked on every MS OS since Win 3.0. So far, Vista is nowhere near as bad as ME or BOB . I have fixed darn near every Window issue known to man--well probably not, but there have been a couple .

Also, to be fair, I started fresh with SP1, so maybe that's it. I am just interested in specifically what is bad (and I am NOT saying it may not turn on me yet). Just curious. Please don't start a generic "Windows and Micro$oft is just bad" I am interested in specific opinions on Vista.

Again, I am NOT a MS apologist, defender or employee, so please don't flame me...

[Alex Franke]

I'm on Vista here at home, too. I turned off UAC because it was annoying and it caused problems with some of the applications I've written that use COM. Aside form the occasional unexplained crash (which happened in XP, too) I haven't had any problems at all.

...except I keep forgetting to use the Windows key to tab through the apps instead of alt. :P

We're still on XP at work.

[Russianwolf]

I've had compatibility problems with Vista and Outlook. My email will stop letting me type into the body of a reply at various times throughout the day. I can type into the subject line and to/bc areas but not the body. If I'm in a rush and it's a short reply, I type it on the subject line then cut/paste it into the body. Then when close Outlook, the window disappears but the program is still running on the task manager.

This is the only problem that I've found so far, but it is annoying.

[crokett]

I am on XP at work so that is what I run at home. I've gotten lazy in my dotage and don;t want to support two OSes. I've played with a Vista laptop and thought meh. No compelling reasons for me to upgrade yet.

[Stytooner]

In essence, for me it was hardware and software compatability issues. Some of these issues fixed themselves with time as new drivers became available.
I hate the way it copies files and folders. If doing an over write of a whole folder, it prompts you no less than three times with different screens asking just what your intentions are.
I still run my cnc mill on Vista with no issues except the copy paste redundancy. It however is stripped down as far as an operating system can go.

[TheRic]

... As a disclaimer, I am an IT Pro, and have worked on every MS OS since Win 3.0. ...

A young pup, still wet behind the ears...

The biggest problem that I have seen/heard/experienced with Vista is that it is DIFFERENT. Some of the grip is the look and feel, some of it is that since it is different (different file names, directories, registries, etc) older software (read - software not specifically designed for vista) does not work correctly, if it even installs.

[OpaDC]

A young pup, still wet behind the ears...

The biggest problem that I have seen/heard/experienced with Vista is that it is DIFFERENT. Some of the grip is the look and feel, some of it is that since it is different (different file names, directories, registries, etc) older software (read - software not specifically designed for vista) does not work correctly, if it even installs.

Think you hit the nail on the head. Some of the changes seem to be just for the sake of change. But then again if you don't make some obvious stuff different people will say "This looks just the same as XP. Why did I buy this?" The other, software issue, is probably one of the main complaints. Evidently much of the older software has problems. Think a lot of these complaints are from gamers though. Funny thing is, a lot of these complaints are based on what people read from more intense users, when in fact most people only read email and surf the web 75% of the time. The rest being spent doing checkbook, downloading and manipulating pictures and similar things. And if just one of these other programs has problems then "This VISTA is garbage and I want my XP back!"

EDIT: I use XP and MAC OSX. My Dad uses VISTA (he is one of THOSE, but 85 so I forgive him) and in reality doesn't have many problems that aren't user error (see parentheses above).

[poolhound]

I (unfortunatley) got in early with Vista when I bought a new laptop early last year. I run XP on my desktop and found the differences very annoying. Some of the major issues I had and still have are:

1. inconsitent networking interface
2. numerous HW incompatability with stuff that works just fine with XP. Even the in built webcam on the laptop wouldnt work as it was unsupported.
3. various driver problems (similar to #2)
4. General annoyance with the new GUI. I know itsa learning curve but I could see no distinct benefit


I am about to get another new laptop and orginally was thinking about getting it with XP but given MS's iminent pulling of XP I am having to think again.

[dbhost]

There is a LOT wrong with Windows Vista,

Take a look at...

There is the philisophical bucket of issues with Vista.
http://badvista.fsf.org/what-s-wrong...-windows-vista

There is the Financial burden of Windows Vista.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut00...ista_cost.html

There are the technical blunders of Windows Vista.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03...a_copying_bug/

There is Microsoft's lackluster performance in patching Vista bugs.
http://security.itworld.com/4347/070...ng/page_1.html

It's not just the UNIX and Linux geeks that think there are serious problems with Windows Vista either...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,12...1/article.html

Some slightly older, general background information on how Microsoft is slipping
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Indus...2184401&page=1

From a business perspective, sales of Windows desktop operating systems preinstalled in computers is falling in favor of Linux and MacOS X (another UNIX).
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8541837412.html

Do a Google search for Richard M. Stallman Windows Vista. He has given some excellent talks at various universities on this subject in depth.

Of course if you are an "IT Professional" you might just like Windows Vista. It should keep you busy for years to come... This is a certain job security maker.

[Tom Hintz]

I have changed all of my computers except my laptop to Vista over the last 6 months and have not had any problems at all. I use my computers constantly doing lots of photo and video work as well as all of the applications that support my site. So far, I have not had any compatibility issues, no crashes I can remember or any other odd occurances.

[x00018]

I support over 700 3 to 4 year old PC's at work. The hardware will not run Vista without memory upgrades but XP runs just fine. We also have many add on's (scanners, printers, etc) that Vista does not have drivers for. It would simply cost to much for us to upgrade all the hardware just to use Vista.

[jking]

The IT guys where I work have indicated that we will very likely not upgrade to Vista. They cited numerous problems including the compatibility issues already mentioned. One of our Cad managers said that Vista will periodically close programs with no warning. Apparently, you can be in the middle of working with a program & it will suddenly just close & you lose what everything since the last save. It is reportedly very random.

It been rumored that Vista has been so poorly received that Microsoft is already starting to work on it's replacement.

[twistsol]

If I were buying all new equipment, I would probably get Vista and just learn the differences, although I still use the classic start menu and control panel layout in XP. There is no compelling reason to upgrade as it doesn't offer any necessary new functionality. I think the biggest gripe with corporate users is that there is little if any new functionality, yet it has greater hardware requirements.

One of the primary functions of an operating system is that it allows allows user programs to communicate with hardware. Vista doesn't support, and is unlikely to ever support, either of the my two scanners or my large format plotter. Replacement of those alone would cost me close to 10k.

Of the nine computers we have,

• 5 run Mac OSX 10.5 and 4 of those run XP as well and are fully Vista capable if switched to dual boot, and the other could barely run XP let alone Vista.
• 3 are purely XP and one of those could never run Vista, the other two would require upgrades.
• 1 of the 9 runs on Linux, Fedora Core 3 and could never run Vista.

[twistsol]

It been rumored that Vista has been so poorly received that Microsoft is already starting to work on it's replacement.

They'd be fools not to. I'm sure Apple is working on the next version of OSX and a few thousand people are working on the next version of Linux as well.

A big feature / problem of Windows is that Microsoft continues to try to make it backward compatible to the stone age. Great idea and wonderful if executed well, but it hangs alot of extra baggage on every successive version.

Apple, by contrast, has no problem throwing away a technology that proved marginally useful and telling developers to change their software to deal with it or telling their customers their 3 or 4 year old computer won't run the current operating system, period. Far more annoying to the corporate world and part of the reason they are still predominantly a consumer products company.

[Tequila]

There is no compelling reason to upgrade as it doesn't offer any necessary new functionality. I think the biggest gripe with corporate users is that there is little if any new functionality, yet it has greater hardware requirements.

That's my biggest gripe with it. My company is going to be following Microsoft's end-of-support schedule for 2000/XP and have all of our equipment switched over to Vista by the end of 2010. My job involves a lot of regulated laboratory instruments, and the instrument vendors are more than a little slow in updating software. So there's a good chance that the software we need won't even be available on Vista by then.

So there's a huge upfront cost to replace all of our perfectly functioing PC's, the cost of training users on a new OS, the cost of buying and validating new software, and the possibility that we won't be able to do all the things we can do today.

And the only reason we're switching is because Microsoft is dropping support for Windows 2000 & XP. So that's what's turned me off to Vista - it might be a perfectly good OS, but there's not enough benefts to justify the cost we'll have to incur to switch. So since Microsoft couldn't convince users to switch on the merits of the new OS, they're basically bullying their customers into switching.