Revisiting the Original Reviews of Windows Vista

harrymcc writes 'We now know that a remarkable percentage of consumers and businesses decided to spurn Windows Vista and stay with XP. But did the reviews of Vista serve as an early warning that it had major problems? I looked back at the evaluations in nine major publications and found that they expressed some caution--but on the whole, they were far from scathing. Some were downright enthusiastic.'

Comments

Vista

[sopssa]

I dont think Vista was that bad OS after a little bit more powerful hardware came out and after you got used to it. It feels a bit more sluggish than XP but that's what Win7 improves with their move responsive UI (which is really important thing that always seems to be forgotten - just compare Opera to Firefox)

Everyone who have started using Win7 already are saying it's great. Even those who skipped Vista completely. Personally I will probably move from Vista once I get a new computer - I dont want to do an update nor move all the files and settings in place and install new programs right now (and more so because I will probably get a new computer soon anyway)

One of the failure points for Vista was that all the drivers had to be redone and released for it. Even if it's a better thing now that it happened, it was bad to be in the first ones. But this time they all work in Win7 too, so that's not an issue.

What comes to UAC, it's the correct direction, but lots of Windows userbase is general audience which would get annoyed with such in Linux and other OS too. Atleast it's there now, and those who dont like it can disable it.

Most of the problems with Vista was actually that it was taking Windows OS into new direction and probably needed that one OS release in between to get there and so that users get familiar and used with it.

Re:Vista

[Chyeld]

My primary and lasting complaint vs Vista was the decision (which admittedly was foreshadowed in XP) to create multiple versions of the OS, where the only difference for the price was what features were enabled in the kernel. Especially when the 'top tier' version boiled down to "we might someday decide to give you some free crap, but not really".

Well that and the fact that they played that "Vista Ready" game despite the fact that their own people were complaining that "Vista Ready" computers were barely able to boot, much less do something useful while Vista was installed.

Re:Vista

[causality]

i agree. aside from needing a lot more memory than what was considered "standard" at the time of its release, vista wasn't bad at all. i think everyone was just riding on the stay-away-from-vista band wagon.

The real issue with Vista was that it didn't offer a good reason to upgrade for the many people who were satisfied enough with XP. It wasn't the staggering improvement over XP that XP was over Win98 and WinME. That's why the average person wasn't eager to install it and perhaps more importantly, neither were many corporations. Many who are more technically inclined felt that its improvements were not innovative but were instead evidence that Microsoft took some ten years to finally address some of the core flaws in XP. I personally think that stance is justifiable.

For example, UAC was the result of rampant malware infecting XP, yet a good designer could have told you before XP's release that most users running as "root" all of the time was asking for trouble. That's because other systems learned the importance of privilege separation and viewed it as a general design principle a very long time ago, before there was such a thing as Windows at all (think Multics, VAX, Unix). So now we have UAC so that the use of superuser capabilities can be limited, and if you listened to their marketing at the time, we were supposed to believe that this was innovation.

Having personally witnessed the various versions of Windows (since 3.1) slowly acquire user accounts, something like a distinction between superuser and normal user, network stacks, mount points, something like 'su' (RunAs), something like Sudo (UAC), I am reminded of that saying that "those who fail to understand Unix are doomed to reimplement it." Sometimes the word "poorly" is added to that sentence. The design principles we have seen and tested after decades of computing are sound, or they're not, yet much of the improvements I have seen in Windows were not due to robust basic design. Instead, they were reactions to the failures of earlier versions, which is not terribly innovative or interesting. I do see a lot of real innovation when it comes to OS-level support for DRM, but this doesn't make me want to run Vista either.

it's just sad that the general public believe the opinions of 12-yr-old geek wannabes or 40-yr-old bloggers who don't even know the difference between java and javascript.

It's sad that there are legitimate reasons to dislike something and that those good reasons often get drowned out by a bunch of demagoguery. You'd think the demagoguery would only be necessary in the absence of legitimate reasons, but some really seem to enjoy it. Others seem to have an axe to grind.

Call it a little devil's advocate, but I'd speculate as well that the abusive or at least "questionable" business practices of Microsoft (such as the ones for which they were convicted in multiple countries) and their willingness to use underhanded tactics like vendorlock haven't earned them many friends. While the average person just wants to browse the Web or run their office apps and really doesn't care, that only seems to make the minority who do care all the more vocal. Still, you can't worry too much about them if you trust in your own ability to know a reasonable argument when you see one.

Re:Vista

[Hijacked Public]

The post I replied to suggested that the only problem Vista had at release was needing more memory than was 'standard'. The file transfer issue was present at release, but as you point out it has been fixed. My complaint is that even with modern hardware opening a directory with 50 video files excessively slows the Explorer window. It might be that I don't care to see previews, maybe I'm just passing through, but the OS sacrifices far too much in order to display previews.

Backward compatibility is an issue beyond drivers. I don't know that I fault Microsoft for making hard decisions in order to move forward, but that doesn't make the problem go away. My friend is a shooter and needed Quickload, but his Quickload install package that worked fine in XP won't install on Vista. That is likely Quickload's fault, but it doesn't matter to my friend. At least MS made concessions to this by releasing a simple (and very good, it seems) XP virtual machine as an add on to Win 7.

Re:Vista

[Hijacked Public]

I don't fault the idea behind UAC, it is absolutely needed. But with decent implementations of the same thing having been in the field for years, why did they screw up theirs so badly?

My desktops have been Unix lineage for most of my life, so I'm used to having to provide admin credentials to admin things. But I still found Microsoft's UAC immediately annoying. A lot of that has to do with poorly written software, but that is the reality of using Windows and Microsoft should have been able to accomodate it.

And they still haven't solved most of the problems associated with bad software as even Win 7 lets it fiddle with the OS too much. It can still slap icons all over the place without asking. It can add to the right click context menu (and try getting rid of that crap). It can start itself at boot in any of the many ways Windows allows, without asking you.

Re:Vista

[CrossChris]

I don't know what hardware your friend has, or how you set it up, but Vista flies on my machines.

I don't know which version of Vista you have, but it must be the special "Friend Of Bill" version that was unavailable to the general public. Vista is appallingly slow on most hardware, and Windows 7 isn't very much better. The release version of "7" has a nasty tendency to fall over when trying to run some third-party software, has "issues" with a lot of drivers ("Vista" ones frequently don't work at all), and has a problem copying large files (where have we seen that one before?).

Windows 7 is just the same old t*rd re-polished with shinier bits for the benefit of the slack-jawed. It's still open to every bit of malware out there, still unstable, still grossly overpriced, and still dreadfully slow.

Just compare it to OSX or Ubuntu, and you'll realise that you've just got used to waiting for the slow junkware to do something...

Re:Vista

[Hijacked Public]

Valid complaints have a way of sticking around.

We seem to have some marginal readers among us. I mentioned the long transfer times as having been present at release, which all of you apologists admit is true. Then, later in my post, I mention traversing directories. I don't know how much you know about computers, but those are two different things mentioned at two different points in my post. Kind of like when you read a book where a guy is alive at the beginning and dead at the end. Do you wonder how he did all the things in between if he was dead?

Regardless, you are right about gettings UAC prompts when you install software. You'd think one would be enough but it usually isn't. You also have a toss up as to whether you'll need to right click and Run as Administrator or not. Confusing at best to be told to install something as an admin when you are an admin and the last install you just did asked you to confirm your admin credentials. And the app you are installing is still given the freedom to install itself and its settings almost wherever it pleases on your disk.

The overwhelming majority of computer users don't really care about the technical details of why things are done the way they are, so explanations do little to mitigate the problems. Even considering those, Microsoft fostered an environment where applications could do anything they liked at install. If they want to correct that I'd prefer they do it in a way that doesn't make me suffer for their oversight. Like many other users who can exercise the choice I intend to sit it out until they do.

Re:Vista

[Antiocheian]

Everyone who have started using Win7 already are saying it's great. Even those who skipped Vista completely.

Do you have any actual data on that? I am not asking for a research but two or three links on the web will do: from people who had a good reason to ditch Vista and they are seriously considering switching from XP to Windows 7. Of course they have to provide some reasoning about it.

I am asking because I found Windows 7 to have the same problem with Vista: namely it works fine on my personal powerful system but it crawls on 6 older systems I have (Duron 1Ghz with 512MB ram). So I would have to throw these away and this is really not justified by the advantages of Windows Vista/7.

I also found this link to be of particular interest as it is targeted on my problem:

readers who have older PCs that function perfectly well but are a few generations behind current gear and curious about upgrading to a new OS.

Windows 7 is too slow on such a system. But XP works fine.

So the question is: Should I contribute to a landfill and throw perfectly funtional systems (they are only used for browsing, old games, coding and printing documents) to enjoy the Windows 7 benefits? I find the answer to be too easy on that.

But then, once I decide to stick on XP to these systems I find a good reason to stick to XP to all my other computers. Why should I be switching through operating systems since I can do my job and play my games as it is?

Re:Vista

[bdenton42]

Opening a directory with 50 video files may slow the Explorer window to generate thumbnails... but only the first time you open that window. It doesn't regenerate them every time, so it won't take any longer to open that window the second time through.

There's no reason that window/mouse response should become sluggish when it is generating thumbnails first time or not. That's just poor UI design. I see the same thing in IE. Some web sites, this one included, will cause window/mouse response in IE to get very sluggish or non-existent for a while. The user action should always have priority. I don't care if it's busy processing through 1000 Slashdot comments... if I want to click a link, close the window, or go back it should just do it.

Re:Vista

[element-o.p.]

I dont think Vista was that bad OS after a little bit more powerful hardware came out and after you got used to it.

To each their own, and if Vista works for you, then that's great. Ultimately, a computer is a tool, and I promise not to get offended if a different tool works better for you than the one I use :)

However, my experience with Vista has been somewhat different. My wife has bought two Vista laptops in the last year, despite my suggestions to buy something -- anything -- else. Quite frankly, if Vista had worked for her, I'd have said the same thing to her that I said to you...but it doesn't (thus the second laptop), and since I am a sys admin by day, she comes to me with her computer problems. Here are a couple of examples:

*) Network printers: she still has a desktop running 2K that has an HP-882C printer attached to it. The printer is shared, and every other machine we own (including my Linux desktop, laptop and server) can print to this printer. The Vista laptop can print to the printer, too...until she reboots. Then I have to manually add the printer again. I have tried adding the printer with the GUI, adding the printer with the "net use" command from the CLI, etc., etc., but every time she reboots, the printer is gone and I have to add it back. I finally set up a Dell network printer, which for some reason known only to the Vista kernel, manages to persist through reboots.

*) Security: Both of her laptops were Compaqs (like Vista, also against my recommendation, but I digress), and were bought new. After her first Compaq was compromised by a virus (despite having A/V on the machine and yes, I patch and update O/S and A/V regularly), I reinstalled from the source CDs that came with her laptop and reinstalled A/V. Shortly afterwards, it was again infected. My wife lets our 8-year old play with the laptop when the two of them are at my wife's business after school and -- again, against my recommendations -- our daughter is usually logged in on my wife's admin account. Microsoft's security and NOD32 A/V is no match for a third grade girl's surfing habits (on-line games, mostly) -- thus the second laptop which our daughter is not allowed to touch, sigh.

*) Run as Administrator and UAC: despite what you said about UAC (

What comes to UAC, it's the correct direction, but lots of Windows userbase is general audience which would get annoyed with such in Linux and other OS too.

), well...they are a step in the right direction, but IMHO, they were poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly implemented. The first time I tried to do an ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew on my wife's Vista and found out that 1) you must have admin privileges to run those commands and 2) once you opened a CLI, you couldn't then call for Admin privileges a la "sudo" but instead had to go back to the start menu and run the "cmd" command as Administrator, yes, I was pretty annoyed. Having used sudo on *Nix systems for nearly a decade, I could not understand what genius in Redmond thought that launching an entire *command shell* as Admin was a better idea. Sudo times out after 5 minutes; the CLI is Admin until you close it. And you can run sudo at any time -- you don't have to open a new shell with sudo to get admin privileges. Yech. As for UAC, did you ever click "Ok" by force of habit instead of "Cancel" when you accidentally tried to delete a file? Do you really think UAC will be any better? Those "general audience" users you mentioned will soon be merrily clicking through UAC alert windows installing God-only-knows-what (if they aren't already). The only saving grace to UAC, IMHO, is that at least you might not be expecting a confirmation window to pop up if something tries to covertly install malware. Perhaps a savvy user will at least have a chance to think about wh

Re:Vista

[element-o.p.]

Another thing to consider: Your friends' preinstalled copy of Vista is going to be garbage because of all the broken sometimes unremovable shovelware. Ditto for the restore image on the recovery partition or the CDs, and doubly so if it's a laptop. All the computers I see (laptops especially) are practically unusable, even fresh after a recovery partition. Install from a regular boxed-copy Vista disc, type in the OEM key (you'll have to back up your activation or give Microsoft's automated line a call) and the same laptop will fly.

In fairness, I don't suppose that can really be blamed on Microsoft since all the crapware on an OEM installation is installed by, well, the OEM installer :) However, having said that, I really can't say that purchasing a PC (desktop or laptop) and then shelling out another $150-200 for the O/S (full version, not upgrade) is a good answer to the problem -- nor is pirating a copy because I already "own" Vista. Screw that; I can legally get Ubuntu (or Gentoo or Slackware or CentOS....) for free.

Re:Follow The Money (from TFA)

[uassholes]

PC World (lots of MS ads):

The bottom line? "All in all, Windows Vista is a great leap forward for the operating system, with a much-improved, far more useful (and pleasurable) interface; faster, better search; beefed-up security that's a big improvement over Windows XP with SP2; and far, far better networking.

Forbes:

The bottom line? "Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody's liver out...

Re:OS Change

[Bigjeff5]

Same here, I got fed up with Vista pretty quickly (it came with a new computer - and blue screened at first boot) and switched to Linux - Ubuntu specifically.

Unfortunately Linux eventually pushed me back to Vista. It took about a year and a half, and by then SP2 was out all the issues I'd had with Vista before had been delt with. It it has all been gravy since then.

I'm telling you, if you aren't fond of the effort Linux takes you might want to give Vista another shot, it has improved a lot.

Why upgrade from 2000?

[glrotate]

I really haven't encountered a compelling feature exclusive to XP, Vista or 7 to upgrade beyond 2000.

2000 has a clean efficient interface and is unencumbered by all of the bloat and runs 32 bit apps.

Except for Cleartype, what real improvements do any of the above offer?

Re:Windows 7 reviews are no different....

[majortom1981]

Well on my network we just got all new z600 workstations with xp .As soon as our windows 7 licenses come in we will be putting windows 7 on the machines. N oreason not to with xp mode if we need xp we just run the program virtually in xp mode.

The major problem I have with Vista

[Orion Blastar]

is that it does not run Windows legacy software like Windows XP and earlier versions did.

My brother is a Gamer, and he bought a Windows Vista Home Premium Laptop, it would not run his old games like Warlords IV and we tried a VirtualBox machine with Windows XP Pro in it but it had limited 3D support and Warlords IV would not run under it. His only option is to run Warlords IV on his old Windows XP Pro desktop, but then he cannot take the game with him on his laptop.

Not just Gamers are affected, but business owners. Many have custom written software they paid for development on older versions of Windows or even MS-DOS that Windows Vista won't run. Some software needs special hardware that does not have drivers for Windows Vista and the XP drivers don't work too well in Windows Vista. Windows Vista does not have hardware drivers for a lot of legacy hardware and thus many machines even if they meet the RAM, CPU, Video, and Hard Drive requirements cannot run Vista without the needed hardware that lacks drivers.

For example my son's Windows XP Pro system has a Texas Instruments Wireless adapter, and Windows Vista and Windows 7 lack a proper driver for it. TI never made a Vista or 7 driver, and neither did Microsoft. So in upgrading him to Windows 7 I'd need to buy a new wireless card. Now if it was a hardware dongle, TV tuner, AM/FM Radio card, or multiple port serial port adapter that lacked Vista or 7 drivers it would be more expensive to buy a newer one to replace the older one. In that case most people just stick with an older version of Windows.

Re:OS Change

[QuantumRiff]

Was talking to a mechanic at a party one day a few years ago.. I kinda jokingly asked him what he drove.. his reponse was awesome:
"I love Ford and Chevy, they both give me guarantee me 40 hours a week of work, but when I get home from spending all day working on cars, I don't want to work on my car, I want to use my car, so I drive a Toyota."

I couldn't better sum up my move to Linux only 3 years ago. (after 5 years of dual booting)

Re:OS Change

[CannonballHead]

You should try having them use Linux. Then, not only do you get "My computer is slow" but you also get "why can't I install ..." or "why doesn't the printer work correctly all the time?" or "Why doesn't flash video work well" ....

Linux is a tradeoff, in my experience with "older" or non-computer-oriented people, between usability and stability. Stable - yes... no problems with viruses right now, pretty stable as far as the OS goes, etc. Usability? There were issues there. Yes, maybe it's because it's not what they are used to... but I hate to break it to you: most people are happily using what they are used to and don't see the reason they need to spend a week trying to figure out something new just so they can watch a youtube video. It worked before, why do they need to suddenly put so much work into it?

(can't say I blame them :) My time is of interest to me, too.)

Re:Windows 7 reviews are no different....

[IGnatius T Foobar]

By which time, the OS on the desktop will be irrelevant siince Netbooks will completely change the dynamics of the OS market. It will not be a stretch to predict that Linux will establish itself within the next 4 years in all Corporates where people exect their devices to boot instantly and work reliably consuming less resources like mobile phones.

Exactly. What the trade rags seem to miss is that Network Computing *is* happening. It isn't happening nearly as quickly as its proponents trumpeted that it would. It isn't happening in the way that it was originally envisioned (how many of you have a 'network computer' running only Java software?). But it is happening. The shift to server-side computing is in progress and unstoppable.

And don't bother with the usual of chorus of "baaaaaaahhhhhhhhh you will never be able to run Photoshop in teh browser!!!!!1" either. The vast majority of corporate computing tasks involve the type of knowledge management activities that ran perfectly in a 3270 terminal a few decades ago, and never needed a desktop computer in the first place.

Vista increased my productivity at work

[roachdabug]

About a year ago, I was asked to be the guinea pig and test out all our engineering applications in Vista. I immediately cringed at the thought of running our 3D Solid Modeling software in the new OS.

My fears were quickly put to rest though. It turns out Solidworks ran flawlessly, and turned out to be far more stable than it was in XP64. Additionally, I found that it would start in a fraction of the time every morning, and I was no longer subjected to 5 minutes of hard disk grinding if I left the application open when I went to lunch. AutoCAD and our 8 year old ERP software had no issues, either. I make frequent use of the improved search features to find a particular drawing or part file lost in a sea of many thousands of engineering files and directories across a network in a couple of seconds.

Today, our entire department is on Vista. Given the opportunity, would we go back to XP? Not a chance.

Re:Windows 7 reviews are no different....

[FreelanceWizard]

I manage an Enterprise Agreement for 250 seats. The minute we upgrade our ShoreTel VOIP system to the new Shoreware version with Windows 7 support, we're done with XP. We're going to begin reimaging all computers with Windows 7 Enterprise using WDS.

Why, you might ask? Windows 7 offers a ton of advancements for the enterprise, from DirectAccess (for always-on VPNs) to improved terminal services and application virtualization (MED-V) and BranchCache (like Offline Files, but better). Additionally, it's got a cleaner interface and, in our tests, runs a smidge faster than XP for office applications on our new Core 2 desktops. Another plus is that we don't have to include drivers in our WDS image, since Windows 7 supports almost every network device I've thrown at it out of the box, and whatever other drivers it needs to download, it can grab during setup.

Admittedly, 250 seats isn't huge and the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I think it's fair to say that a lot of businesses with EAs and Software Assurance are going to snap up Windows 7. It's a major improvement over XP, and both users and sysadmins like it.