Why do people hate on Vista?

[MattNF]

I've been using Vista for about a month now, and I haven't had a single problem with it. None. It runs great, fast, and smoothly. No BSOD, no crashes, no problems. Why do people bash it a lot? Is it because they just jump on the lame Mac bandwagon? Or is hating popular things "cool" now?

 

[AltF4]

Hating popular things has always been cool!


Really, most frustrations with Vista have been because of the UAC thing. And that really is a sad case. It's totally pointless and just gets in the user's way. People are right to complain about it. But at least you can turn it off...

Vista DOES run slower than XP. (at least in most cases) So you also heard from a lot of people that made the switch that their computers ran slower. So that will cause frustration as well. If you go out and buy a new computer today it will run just fine. But people with older computers upgrading had problems.


Vista does do a couple of things very right, though. Like bundling in every driver known to man kind, lol. Just about any device you find is auto-installed as soon as you plug it in. That's a plus.

Also, Vista finally implemented Address Space Layout Randomization. Something the security community has been talking about for some time. It makes it harder to weaponize exploits. It's not perfect, but nothing is.

 

[Red the Ghost]

It's just not very stable, and runs a lot slower compared to XP.

 

[LLDL]

vista doesnt have anything that xp has, xp can do everything vista can and more. And the interface sucks on vista. Its almost as bad as mac, lol jk. But its pretty bad. Oh, and what mac bandwaggon? Mac SUCKS!!

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Also, Vista has a vicious DRM layer that eats up performance. It's not a big hit, but it is offensive to me on principle. DRM (in any form on any device) only ensures that pirates have a seamless, pain-free experience. Meanwhile, the paying customers have to fight with activation, online authentication, etc. Vista was not really ever meant for the end consumer's benefit. It was a contract deal with Hollywood in hopes of fighting piracy and whatnot.

Oh, and to say you've "had no problems with Vista" is no indication of how "great" or "stable" Vista is. It just means you do nothing more than browse the Internet and use a word processor. I guarantee that when you start to hit your machine hard with various intense programs (and start tweaking a bunch of settings), Vista starts to buckle. It has horrible memory management. It idles at around a GB of RAM, which is absurd.

 

[Evil-Guy]

Very very buggy.

 

[AltF4]

Yea, anything made by Microsoft is just chock full of DRM. I heard some reports about Windows 7 actually scanning your installed programs to find pirated copies.


My issue is with people who just like to jump on the "Vista sucks!!!111" bandwagon because it makes them sound like they know what they're talking about. But when asked they can't respond with anything more descriptive than "it sucks" or "it's slow". You have to at least know WHY you hate something, people.

But don't mistake that for "supporting" Windows in any way. I don't.

 

[meta master]

people need to get their facts straight. it took XP several years to catch on. it also took 2 service packs. Vista's stable with only one and the second is in release candidate form already. this shows that Microsoft is working on it. another thing, Microsoft gave users 7 years of XP fanservice. Then all of a sudden, they come out with something new. of course people are going to be scared and jump the bandwagon that Vista sucks. They try it out and don't understand anything because they can't seem to get over the UAC and the differences. For example the search as you type feature is extremly useful. thats a pro. a con is debatably, UAC. in XP people complain about the lack of security and in Vista they complain about too much security. Stop complaining, and get over it. XP is 7 years old. isnt it time to let it die already?? On top of that, Microsoft seems to be continuing its trend of making a new OS every 2-4 years again. Windows 7 is coming out soon, yet Vista's barely matured. (even though its shown tremondous improvement since its release)

/rant
P.S. please ignore my spelling.

 

[AltF4]

UAC is not security, it's the illusion of security. It makes a huge annoying popup that asks you for permission.

But when there are a thousand and one ways to get around the UAC, what does it matter? And UAC is even MORE irrelevant when you consider the fact that nobody EVER says no to UAC. Even if you did have a virus on your machine and it wanted to get through your firewall, it could just ask the user! All you do is call the program "Windows Important Service, let me though!" and 99% of them would say yes!

Is that security? No. It's just pushing it off to the user.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Plus, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. An OS being old is not justification to just release a new one. XP is not just old. As you pointed out, MM, XP has several service packs and has thus matured considerably. When Halo 2 came out for PC, it was claimed to only work in Windows Vista, but a few pirate hacks later, Halo 2 works flawlessly in XP. So, why do we need Vista again? It is clearly a Microsoft marketing ploy.

Here are my reasons for hating Vista.

First off, Microsoft goes overboard in treating the operating system like its Photoshop or something. It tries too hard to pack it with features, junk programs, pretty graphics, etc. Instead, Microsoft should be focusing on making a solid OS core that runs fast, has strong security, and manages memory effectively. It is abominable that Windows Vista requires a GIGABYTE of RAM to run smoothly. The same lousy excuse is always "get with the times; you need a fast computer". I agree with that relative to programs I need to run, not the bloody operating system. The OS should require very few resources to run. I should not need GIGs of RAM to play Solitaire comfortably. That is not "modern" design; that is lazy/stupid design.

Along these same lines, Microsoft is stupid for releasing 6+ versions of the cursed thing. Like I said, the OS should be simple and straightforward, not jam packed with garbage (or stripped of anything useful like that of Home Basic edition). Also, Microsoft makes stupid choices in which features it considers "premium". Aero, for example, is not that impressive... but oooooh, you can only get Aero if you buy Home Premium or higher! I have nothing against a company trying to make money, but Microsoft has lost touch with reality. It is no longer about delivering a product we really need; it is about maximizing profits by coercing people into thinking that Vista offers more than it really does.

Windows 95 had huge midnight release parties. Windows 95 was an answer to many people's prayers! It streamlined the UI and made the system much more useful. Many years later, Vista tries to come along and break the 7 year silence of XP... but with nothing more than a system that is memory-hungry, "secure", and packed with shiny graphics. Phailure.

XP does need an upgrade. There are many issues it needs to have addressed... but Vista was not that answer. Vista was a contract deal between Microsoft and Hollywood to ensure that HD content was locked down and "safe from piracy".

 

[jmlee337]

Microsoft goes overboard in treating the operating system like its Photoshop or something. It tries too hard to pack it with features, junk programs, pretty graphics

I guess you could attribute some of that to the pressure that Microsoft gets for not being "perfect" like Apple's OSX

 

[Superstar]

Oh, and to say you've "had no problems with Vista" is no indication of how "great" or "stable" Vista is. It just means you do nothing more than browse the Internet and use a word processor. I guarantee that when you start to hit your machine hard with various intense programs (and start tweaking a bunch of settings), Vista starts to buckle. It has horrible memory management. It idles at around a GB of RAM, which is absurd.

MattNF plays games on his Vista. It's 3Ghz dual core, 9800GT, 4GB RAM DDR2 1066, 64bit Vista. I know because we kinda talked about our computer builds. Mine is XP, right now, but that's because I couldn't find a 64 bit OS. Planning to upgrade with Windows 7.

I just don't like Vista cause it eats my laptop's battery. With the right specs, it's fine, but on laptops, yech. Ubuntu isn't much better, almost no laptop options. Wanting to put Windows 7 beta on it in the meantime.

 

[noradseven]

Because its too mainsteam, plan 9 superiority goooooo.

No the main problem with vista is its a resource hog(for those of us that have older computers), and its not XP, 7 fixed the first issue nothing will stop peoples complain about the second.

Before SP1 I could list like 3 pages worth of problems, but SP1 fixed a ton of stuff.
Windows in general still needs a kernal before I will stop complaining about it though.

edit: Heh Ubuntu is for scrubs, Arch is where Linux is at.

 

[Tonb3rry]

I have ran several programs on Vista that works fine on XP, but on Vista they just randomly freeze at some point, so I can't use them on Vista.

I think I have found like 6 programs that I use often who doesn't work without crashing at some point on Vista.

The four worst things about Vista:
- The OS is a RAM-stealer
- Programs crashes.
- There are bugs on some game you run on Vista.
- Too many driver problems.

 

[kigbariom]

A couple of reasons, but the main one is the whole windows 2007 package is different for no reason except for the sake of; begin different. And that bothers me, because they change the interface and style even though it was fine the way it was. Like office 2007 and changing the start menu.
Second, as stated above it's buggy, and even though there is no BSOD, it makes up with tiny frequent flaws.
Games don't like Vista and Vista doesn't like games. I don't think any company should have to release specific patches for Vista, it's terrible but it's the only way around it. Take for example Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Anyone who successfully installed that on Vista without yelling, swearing, or abusing their computer deserves a medal.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I would have loved Vista if they had built it from scratch and started a new Windows branch. The loyalty to backwards compatibility is what makes each new release more painful.

 

[noradseven]

If you thought getting the game was hard to run on Vista, try getting it to run on a mac, using wine, self compiled because darwine sucks. Ohh and by the way your compy doesn't meet minimum specs either. Getting stuff to work on Vista isn't hard if you know what your doing unfortunately you shouldn't need to know.

The four worst things about Vista Windows:
- The OS is a RAM-stealer
- Programs crashes.
- There are bugs on some game you run on Vista Windows.
- Too many driver problems.

There you go

 

[hectichobo]

I've had Vista for 3 months and my only problem I've had was one random shut down because I downloaded some "spybot" thing. It runs faster than my XP times 10. Also, I'v never seen something be able to get drivers so fast. It got my rock-band guitar driver in seconds. I thought it would be a long painful process, it wasn't.

 

[Raider 88]

I used to hate on it because it couldn't run the real version of Yahoo Messenger. The UAC was extremely annoying until I disabled it too.

 

[Drakar]

its a rip off of macintosh

 

[Skrlx]

i pretty mch agree with buzzsaw..

i'm just waiting for windows 7.
i'll be dualbooting windows 7 RC1 with my curent main OS(vista >_>)

 

[Raider 88]

i pretty mch agree with buzzsaw..

i'm just waiting for windows 7.
i'll be dualbooting windows 7 RC1 with my curent main OS(vista >_>)

Our entire class gets to play around with the Windows 7 beta for a whole week in my Operating Systems class. I can't wait to check it out.

 

[jmlee337]

Our entire class gets to play around with the Windows 7 beta for a whole week in my Operating Systems class. I can't wait to check it out.

Win 7 is tight, I like it a lot

 

[toon_marth]

Why do people bash it a lot?

Because its made by microsoft, lawl. No really. A lot of people just knock Microsoft before they even know what they've made. For me it's because Microsoft has been a bit unreliable in the past. They always get outdone in some way by Apple. The only thing Microsoft has a bigger share than apple on is their PCs. Even still, they aren't building and selling their own PC harware, just software OS. And most of the time the software OS' suck. The only OS that really hit the mark IMO is XP, and even that has its faults.

They haven't been very reliable in the past. Take for example

Spoiler

Windows ME

.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Microsoft stopped giving customers what they want many years ago. Who honestly wanted Vista? I'll tell you: businesses who were tired of Windows lack of security and Hollywood. Vista boasts a vastly "superior" security system over XP (mostly in the form of its laughable UAC). From there, Hollywood wanted Microsoft's help in stripping consumers' rights in regards to HD content: the idiotic DRM layer.

Where does that leave the casual consumer? We get an OS that wastes all your memory before you have launched any actual programs. We get shiny glass windows with fancy Aero tricks. Screw all usability and actual improvements over XP. Microsoft just wants to maintain control over its users. Vista covered up its lack of progress with pretty colors.

I need to find the article, but I remember reading one about the sub-par release of Vista. Windows 95 had an incredible midnight release because it was an answer to everyone's prayers. There were huge lines outside of retail stores. Windows 95 improved usability so much. It was a giant leap in the right direction. Vista had barely anyone around for the midnight release. There was no compelling reason to actually upgrade. XP was doing the job just fine.

--- --- ---

As you may know, I exclusively run Linux now, but I want to point out something that may help you understand where I am coming from: I left Windows before knowing about Linux as a viable option. I just grew fed up with Microsoft's crap and wanted out. I wasn't sure if I was going to buy a Mac or start dabbling in Linux. Fortunately, a friend of mine recommended that I give Ubuntu a try, and that is what changed my life. For once, I am back in control of my computer. My memory no longer idles at 80% capacity. My system runs fast, never crashes, and does nothing to constrict my rights. Most software is open source and/or free. It is truly liberating.

 

[noradseven]

Okay Ill serious post here, the reason why people don't like Vista is the reason why people like windows.

Windows is famous for being reverse compatibility with that crappy software your grandma used 20 years ago, vista doesn't do this. <-- Main problem.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

It is time for a new Windows branch. There is no point in propping up the ancient code base. Then again, while we're at it, it is time for a new hardware architecture too.