Status
Not open for further replies.

parabola

Distinguished
Jan 3, 2008
104
0
18,680
I don't get it. I like Vista. I embrace it. I have not had one single problem with Vista so I am wondering the reason some do not like it. I have read and heard this a lot on the web, etc. :pt1cable:

I must say that I feel the reason for dislike must be very genuine, and by asking the question, I am not discrediting anyone. I can sympathize with anyone that has PC issues. It is frustrating, and disappointing for sure. :pfff: I really want to know. They are reasons though and I say because there is a reason why you dislike Vista, I say there is a reason why Vista is not meeting your needs or expectations. Don't blame the OS, blame the hardware! :non:
 

2hi4me2cu

Distinguished
Jan 7, 2008
5
0
18,510
I think its really easy to say 'blame the hardware' i think in this day in age the majority of people have a pc more than capable of running Vista but for one reason or another it doesnt work.

An example would be that im currently crawling the internet for my vista problems, but my pc works fine with XP.

Well why not stick with Xp i hear you say?

Well. Ive brought Vista now, and im stubborn :p

 

MrsBytch

Distinguished
Jul 31, 2006
95
0
18,630
I went with 64bit home premium. I love it after getting it set up the way I want it. I have had some issues though.
1)cant find program to overclock my video card (Tried ati tool, coolbits, rivatuner)
2)Cant get flash player so I cant view news clips or youtube clips or anything that requires flash. (this is a bitch)
It says I can use a 32 bit browser in a 64 bit operating system to view these things, so I downloaded mozilla, but it still doesnt work.
3)Speedfan is the only cpu temp utility I can get to work. (Tried TAT, coretemp)

Another problem is when you download pictures (jpeg) to your pictures folder (or any folder for that matter) when you go to view the icons, you cant actually see the pic in the icon, so if your looking for a certain pic, you have to go through and view each one. Anyone know a fix for this?
 

Raviolissimo

Distinguished
Apr 29, 2006
357
0
18,780
i have alternated between Vista and XP to learn Speech
recognition programs. i am working with a vision disability;
it takes a lot more work to focus my eyes and read menu's.

Vista is sort of a paradox for me. i could experience rising
anxiety while working in Wordpad in speech recognition mode,
when i was trying to navigate the file system. it's got the
eye candy but it's harder for me to find stuff, than with XP.

part of that is a training issue (although, i had the same
vision problem when i started with XP - i didn't need any
training with XP.) if i took a Vista class at the JC, or maybe
found a local computer club that was having a "Vista night",
i could learn the new things on Vista.

paradoxically, Vista has great speech recognition. i paid
$700 to get similar capabilities with XP. Vista Ultimate
32 has it built in.

there's a video out where some Microsoft guy botches a
demo of the speech recog. system. it makes Vista look
bad. it doesn't explain that there's a 1 1/4 hour training
process with speech recognition, at least there is with
Dragon Naturally Speaking (on XP) and with Vista Speech
Recognition.

so any "bad rap" that Vista got on that front, is undeserved.
it has great speech recognition capabilities. it gives me
some hope that i will be able to use speech for some of the
commands in the 3D modelling programs i'm familiar with.
 

dsharp9000

Distinguished
Feb 27, 2007
222
0
18,690
I think the major problem for a lot of vista nay sayers is the lack of legacy hardware and software support. Sure there are other issues, but if you cant use your existing equipment it becomes a problem that vista wont allow you to do your work. This is what happened to me. If my existing equipment would support vista, then i would use vista; but it does not work with it.

The vista proponents always seem to say its the fault of me to upgrade my hardware and software; but it is expensive to replace even if i bought a new computer ( i need to be able use my existing scanner, printer, software). Then they also say that its the fault of hardware and software manufacturers for not upgrading the support to vista.

This all may be true; but in the end i dont care as i need to be able to do my work which in the end trumps all.

I think if one is going all new - vista is the choice; but if it forces to go all new even though you dont need to or cant afford to, then you cant -- so vista becomes an easy target as there is no upgrade path until "everything" is vista compatible
 

parabola

Distinguished
Jan 3, 2008
104
0
18,680
Thanks for the replies...WOW! So what I am hearing so far is compatibility as the main reason Vista is not being so widely accepted. Heck, even after what, at least a year or more since it's debut.

Do we think compatibility is the #1 reason? Or, is there another main reason I am wondering why Vista has not been readily accepted?

This brings up another question for me. Can anyone remember the same issues, "compatibility," with Windows XP? I got XP when I purchased a new computer on or close to 04.15.02 back in the day. As I remember, and please correct me if I am not even close, Windows XP had been out at least a whole year prior to the date I bought my new PC with XP?

On a personal note, my latest PC (specs below) was purchased 09.19.07. Again at least a whole year after the release of Redmond's new brain child. I have posted on the Tom's forums recently that I do try to stay at least a whole year behind any new technology; for the very reason of compatibility issues being the main reason. It does seem to me that compatibility should not even be an issue after a year since the release of a new OS - Windows Vista. On a side note, I read somewhere; yesterday I think, that Adobe is making some kind of statement by not having complete compatibility with Vista. I think maybe software companies at some level, are rebelling against Microsoft...
 

MrsBytch

Distinguished
Jul 31, 2006
95
0
18,630


Ummm....is the software your trying to run, Vista compatible, probably not.
 

keithlm

Distinguished
Dec 26, 2007
735
0
18,990


Luckily I am also a FreeBSD and Linux user. When I buy new hardware I always try to get something that I know will work with FreeBSD and Linux. (SIDE NOTE: The guys in the CPU forum think poorly of me because I don't overclock... well duh.. I run 4 or 5 operating systems... and don't like spending time trying to find the overclock sweet spot... I'd rather be USING my system.)

End result of using hardware that works on many operating systems: Hardware that works fine in FreeBSD/Linux will generally be absolutely fine in Vista.

I will inject my opinion on why we have so many "XP Fanboys".

Basically Vista is mostly the same as XP with a few major differences. I will list two of the main changes: They rewrote the networking stack AND they stopped allowing programs/drivers to access low level restricted parts of the operating system. This forces programmers to actually go through the standard operating system layers to get to the hardware.

This does two GOOD things: It tightens up the security of the system since nobody can access hardware directly with a bad intent. (Or with a cruddy program.) It also stabilizes the system since you won't have multiple devices trying to bypass the hardware and access "their" hardware at the same time... which can cause weird results and reboots that can not be explained.

HOWEVER this change also has a BAD side effect: many device driver programmers had gotten into the (bad) habit of directly accessing the hardware to optimize their drivers. When that ability was removed in Vista they were forced to "follow the rules". But sadly many of them had drivers SO dependent on bypassing the operating system that their hardware now runs like garbage. (And/or they put out a cruddy device driver for Vista that works poorly.)

NOTE: This also made some people with programs/applications that didn't have bad intentions stop directly accessing the hardware or low levels of the operating system. Many security programs needed this ability and stopped working completely because of it; they had to be re-written. So it wasn't all "bad" programmers... thought I'd mention that before I got yelled at.

This is slowly changing as time goes on... in the meanwhile people will incorrectly blame Vista. (Programmers that "followed the rules" in XP didn't have to do a lot of work to get things to work perfectly in Vista... in most cases they didn't need to do anything at all.)

The other main things they added include the dubious UAC which I always disable... and the rights management garbage which I never use on my PC. Most people that deride Vista just comment on the added eye-candy since it is the only change they actually know about because they can actually see it.


 

parabola

Distinguished
Jan 3, 2008
104
0
18,680
Keithlm, there's a lot i would like to comment on from your very helpful post. I learned a lot! You obviously have a deep understanding of how an OS works, hence your running several different OS's. Interestingly the eye candy is what I passed up on as I opted for the Vista basic. I liked your comment on OCing. Let's bypass the past time and actually "use" the OS. In defense of the OC'ers, it can be quite fun to tweak, and find the ultimate sweet spot. amazing what those peeps can do. Amazing. To each their own for sure. I love the variety that is life!
 

keithlm

Distinguished
Dec 26, 2007
735
0
18,990


I've been doing this since 1977... and the more I learn the more I realize I know exactly nothing. Nada. Zilch. (In other words never start thinking you know something... because in FORUMS.... somebody will come along and show you that you didn't know as much as you thought you did.)

Don't get me wrong... I LOVE to overclock. It can be a LOT of fun. You can literally spend DAYS doing it. Ergo my aversion to it. I'd rather be doing something else in that time. But then... I guess I do waste time on these forums...

But after I play with overclocking and I've seen what it will do I set it back to stock. (Or close to stock. I've got my DDR400 memory running at DDR466.)

 

keithlm

Distinguished
Dec 26, 2007
735
0
18,990
Hey you guys want to know why DirectX10 is the bees knees?
<He says in a voice similar to the weird doctor guy in the movie "Independence Day"... "We call it the freak show".>

I'll tell you a story of getting knocked off my chair.

I was running 2 copies of Prime95. One for each core in my CPU. I wanted to stress the CPU and heat them up.. and make sure things were stable. Then I ran the NVidia DX10 demo "Cascades" because I wanted the GPU to heat all the way up also. I figured everything would start stuttering or maybe crash. After Cascades stutteredd a bit during starting it suddenly evened out and started running SMOOTHLY. On my second monitor I could see the CPU's still being pegged at 100% and the two copies of Prime95 running.

Turns out the Cascades demo does ALL of it's work and calculations for graphics on the GPU processors. Minimal CPU needed.

When I first saw the Cascades demo I thought... "Ho.. Hum nothing really that great."

But when I saw it do this... I realized... OMG... THIS IS COOL. (A little something that won't work in DX9... for all the "I don't need Vista/DX10" people.)
 

Corydon

Distinguished
Jan 9, 2008
1
0
18,510
I remember hearing a lot of controversy about the DRM built into Vista, aside from deliberately crippling the OS, it was feared that it would cause problems for perfectly legitimate uses as well.

Has this turned out to not be as big of a concern as everyone feared? To be honest, this has been the main reason I've stuck with XP (when I'm obliged to use Windows).
 

parabola

Distinguished
Jan 3, 2008
104
0
18,680


Controversy, hype, rumors, and ignorance prevails... :ouch:
 

speedbird

Distinguished
Apr 19, 2007
547
0
18,990
If there was an Award for the best looking OS, Vista would certainly be in the running. Even I must admit the Aero Interface looks pretty cool, with those nice transparency effects and I feel Overall Vista feels more smart compared to XP. Unfortunately looks take a back seat to usability and that's where I feel vista is a disappointment for me.

One of it's flaws is it's need to be a resource hog, Even in basic mode (Aero turned off) Vista eats system resources. Does Microsoft really think this bloat is necessary? Yeah sure Vista is going to demand more than XP (logical), but I don't bide all this nonsense 'The reason why it is bloated is because it's for future hardware'. Even Simple tasks in vista feel slow like copying files or opening menus . Look at some of the Linux Distributions, like the excellent Ubuntu, which feels light while offering some nice improvements with each edition. Linux will never compete with Microsoft in the mainstream, but for the mainstream user, the older XP is still a sound choice and the everyday tasks will be quicker. Hardware wise XP will also use Dual, Quad Core etc, so it's not even close to being obsolete.

Another claim is Vista's more secure, I do agree Microsoft has done ok. By Default Vista has some nice security tools included like Defender, parental controls and User Account control. Even though I do agree that such features are welcome especially for the novice computer users, XP can be made just as secure with some simple downloads and Vista will still need a third Party Anti-virus solution. If you want a truly secure operating system use Linux :)

Gaming wise Vista Includes Direct X 10, but from my experience, it's to early to be an essential feature for a gamer. The DX10 games I have managed to play was kind of a 'spot the difference' affair between the DX9 mode while suffering a performance hit. Bioshock actually looks worse because AA cannot be enabled while in DX10 mode. Lets be clear I am not blaming Microsoft for this, because it's up to the developers to make the best use of the new features. However buying Vista for the DX10 hype is really not worthwhile from my perspective, well at least not yet.

Compatibility is another issue, there is some software and games that just will not run on Vista. I have experienced a variety of software titles that either did'nt work or crashed randomly. If the software developer does not issue a patch or there is no known workaround fix, that software title becomes pretty much useless. Although to be fair if a software title was designed for XP, then there's no guarantee it will run on Vista. I can understand that, but I believe Vista has caused me more compatibility problems with existing software, than my past experiences with previous Windows Editions. I believe Microsoft could of Improved compatibility, even though reasonably it could never be perfect.

In time Vista will be on most computers, but only because Vista will be the only choice for new computers/computer builds. In time Vista may get better with service packs, so watch this space.
I really like Linux, but I very much doubt it could become a mainstream choice like Windows.


 


I watch youtube all the time on Vista. Nothing special was done. Other flash too. All over the place. But here at Toms the videos don't work for 'second take', works in FF but not IE.
I OC my 8800 with the simple Nvidia utility called Ntune.

Set views to 'tiles' to see thumbnails.

This is on Ultimate 64 but I suspect same is true of home.


Vista is working fine for me. A few incompatibilities here and there, same as it was for XP which was HATED for a long time. Lots of ppl saying we would have to pry win 98 from their cold dead hands and that XP was slow and a memory hog, bad frame rates etc etc. History repeats.

I hear a lot of vague opinion against Vista and very little substance. Plenty of hardware addicts here are using it and liking it!
 

parabola

Distinguished
Jan 3, 2008
104
0
18,680


Aaah, Linux. I love Linux. I recently installed another HD just to dedicate to Linux Fedora. I switch between OS's just to break up the monotony. Nobody puts a gun to our heads and makes someone get Vista, or any OS for that matter. Like any other major purchase, we need not go into it blindly. We should do our research before getting Vista. Research things like the hardware on our current PC, our personal catalog of software that we enjoy, etc. Ask ourself the question, "what will we be using the PC for?" And then go from there...

Vista is good. XP is good. Linux is good. They each have their place on the PC.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.