they should give it away with breakfast cereals, providing it comes with a jewel case and a blank inlay card.

A very sad day for Microsoft when even their "paid for shills" are turning against Vista.

MS will cheerfully let you downgrade it to XP anyway, just as long as they can claim to have shifted another unit. The fundamental thing that the whole Vista debacle has exposed to the world at large is that MS really can't compete against such stiff competition as, erm, itself. Still, while so many business boxen are tied to some form of Windows, do they really care?

Yes you can.

I have a naughty copy of Ultimate. Still wondering if I should install it. XP Pro works fine. I see very little reason to 'upgrade' or even shove on another partition and dual boot it. Might do though if I am REALLY bored.

Corporations don't want Vista. They want to wait and see if Windows 7 is all it's cracked up to be.

Where's my Balmer icon?

It's kind of funny. Those of us that use Vista don't seem to have any strange trouble that is typically talked about in articles like this. The naysayers seem to be the ones with journo badges, linux/apple fanbois, and luddites.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I haven't had a single problem with Vista since installing it nigh on 12 months ago...and I know I'm not the only one. All the people I know having problems 'with Vista' are amazed to find out that their problems are actually hardware and/or non-Microsoft related.

Yes, it is all FUD, I tell you.

I haven't had any problems with Vista either (used at work), and am tired of all the negative comments. Mind you, it is more expensive than XP, does no more than XP and needs better hardware. Apart from that: Great OS!

"All the people I know having problems 'with Vista' are amazed to find out that their problems are actually hardware and/or non-Microsoft related."

Come on Ben, your average punter doesn't see it that way. A working system gets 'upgraded' to Vista and it stops working. Whose fault is that? I suppose next you'll be saying it's the punter's own fault for expecting a product that works in return for their money!

Anyone's fault but MS eh?

"Shot using Microsoft's trademark video techniques of potted sound bite, dizzying zoom, wobbly camera, and sped-up action sequence, the viewer quickly forgets to think and is slowly lulled into accepting Windows Vista. According to Microsoft's site, Windows Vista is safer, easier, more reliable and more versatile... than?"

Safer than.....

must be talking about safer than windows 98.

although 98 probably runs faster on significantly less hardware and all without asking stupid questions all the time....

Even Paris asks more sensible questions than vista...

Your Spanish is bad, it is:

Hasta la Vista, Baby!

Or if you had the dubbed Spanish version:

"The world famous phrase "Hasta la Vista, Baby" is translated to "Sayonara, Baby" in the Spanish version of the film." (see IMdB)

Not battered enough yet..

I would like to applaud Sony, for finally releasing the XP downgrade drivers for its Vaio line of laptops!! Yay, now that useless pile of expensive plastic in the corner can be a productive machine again! (we won't let our cherubs be exposed to Vista just yet)

If Vista had been recalled, it would have been a better product launch.

If Vista had been banned, it would have provoked more people to use it out of spite.

If Vista had worked as promised, it might have been intentionally purchased!!

Just for your edification: google "define:vista"

Definitions of vista on the Web:

* view: the visual percept of a region; "the most desirable feature of the park are the beautiful views"

Which sums it up beautifully for me!

Yes but have you gained anything from buying VISTA?

Is the gain enough to shell out to update 10,000 desktops in your company?

>All the people I know having problems 'with Vista' are amazed to find out that >their problems are actually hardware and/or non-Microsoft related

If you upgrade to Vista and your hardware stops working it isn't necessarily Microsoft's fault - but it is still your problem.

I have given Vista a number of goes now, first after release, later after a number of updates and patches were available, and then when SP1 was released. All tests were done across multiple machines with single core procs, 1-2 GB of RAM and Nvidia GeForce 6xxx GPUs. And Vista just sucked a rock each time I looked at it.

However, I have recently purchased a new machine (Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM, GeForce 8800GTX), and Vista actually runs...Well...Well! I'm rather surprised. So the conclusion I've come to is, unless you're buying a grunty new machine, there is no conceivable way Vista is worth it. And I think the key word there is "grunty", ala see the whole 'Vista Capable' class action lawsuit. I think the sticker should have said "Will run Vista so slowly, you'd wish you bought a Mac".

So that would be all of them, then?

I use Ubuntu (guess that makes me a "fan boi", right) and several other Linux distros as well as XP and Vista, including two identical laptops that came preloaded with Vista Home Premium. The XP desktop will stay with XP because it does what the user needs it to do. If there is a NEED it will get upgraded...to Ubuntu. One laptop is now a Linux testbed. The Vista machine has been nothing but problems from day one. BSOD while just sitting with nothing running, a flat refusal to defrag using the built in utility, slow to boot, slower to shut down (when it WILL shut down) and the questions, the never-ending questions. Why is that machine still loaded with Virus...I mean Vista? Simple, the Autistic child who uses it likes the games. She knows when it goes south, it's getting Ubuntu. And she's fine with that because, guess what? SHE HATES VISTA outside of the game suite and Ubuntu makes does eye candy that her machine won't do with even the overpriced Ulitmate upgrade.

Tux - Because when Linux has a major error, it gives me information I can use to fix the problem, not FATAL ERROR: (2023:000:0000:0000x0_0x000)

Oh come on now..."gluttonous hardware requirements"?!?! i mean really. NO ONE complains about the Mac OS. They have LITERALLY been forcing people to buy new computers every two-three years. This is the FIRST Windows OS that doesnt support the 486!! The mac has REQUIRED firewire and a G3 processor since OS 9. Oh yeah, ur motherboard doesnt have firewire? Buy a new computer! Thats the Mac way...take it in the a$$. Why doesnt anyone point this out? Wait, i just did. But then Mac users are used to paying through the nose every 2-3 years for forced upgrades.

Vista is Microsoft's method of forcing a world wide hardware industry out of business. By using it's new OS architecture as an excuse to force hardware to be emulated in software for the ultimate end to reduce all functions to a on CPU function. Once this is achieved the computer is reduced to nothing but a near thin client. At that point all the same functions can be done by a Microsoft server and not on the computer itself thus the completion of putting of 90% of consumer hardware based technologies, out of business, putting all processes into Microsoft's control on it's servers instead of the users own machine. This gives Microsoft complete control over all user data, all computing, and they can charge any price for your access to it. You can have access to your data if you subscribe and they have the power of saying no to anything you do.

Ultimately people don't like it and it's no surprise any OS that takes a step toward taking control away from it's users and a global industry in any way will be met with Resistance. No matter what you believe we want our computers to be whole and remain in our control to be used at our own discretion.

When vista RTM was first released an MVP friend gave me one of his evaluation copies to evaluate. I used is as my main OS for 8 months before dumping it and going back to XP. When I first got it I was open minded and prepared to be impressed. Even if I didn't like it myself, it seemed inevitable back then that it would be widely adopted and so I would have to learn it in order to be able to fix it.

My box is pretty old (2.5 athlon with a gig of ram) and although the general overall performance was a little bit sluggish, it was not too appallingly bad. The eye candy was nice but I turned it all off after a couple of days because i wanted the extra 5% or whatever of performance. The UAC nagging might be OK for end-lusers who don't do anything more than bashing out reports is MSWord but as far as I was concerned it was just unremitting torture. Not acceptable.

The nice things were the big thumbnails, the improved picture-and-fax-viewer (does anyone ever use it for faxes by the way ? what is a fax, mummy ?) the excellent spam filter in OE7 (MSmail 7 or whatever it was called) and the cursor going to end of the filename rather that the end of the extension when renaming.

There were a few other small small detail improvements too such as the big alt-tab previews but sadly all these pluses were canceled out by negatives such as the missing menu bar (DUH !) the hidden network connections folder, the command line shutdown being crippled and general application compatibility. The new search seemed unnecessarily complicated too.

One of the most annoying things about XP and previous Windows was the lack of a folder size column in explorer. I imagined that that would be finally sorted out in Vista but it wasn't. Worse still, the third-party folder size utilities I use with XP didn't work at all in Vista as the neccecary API's are removed.

One of the worst windows features has always been a habit of hiding important things in really stupid places (like emails stored in C:\Documents and Settings\myname\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{1D2A742B-69D9-4BCE-ABBA-1F45BFF465C1}\Microsoft\Outlook Express) but unfortunately with the advent of Vista's virtual folders and its roaming profiles this has got even worse. Many more folders tended to come up as 'access denied' too, even though I was administrator (with the extra fixes to make me 'real' administrator (which was another puddle of shite I had to wade thru to get anything done))

The final, and maybe biggest problem of all was the "calculating time remaining" bug. A flagship OS which that is not capable of reliably performing basic copy/move/delete operations is almost unbelievable, but MS Vista was that OS. This bug seemed so big that MS couldn't ever even admit it, let alone fix it. I never found out if there was truth in the rumors that it was a DRM mis-feature but in the end this disability was the final nail in the coffin.

At first I was prepared to be impressed by Vista but having used it for 8 months I was impressed only by what a bloated mess it was, and how little extra real functionality it offered.

...bloated, annoying, expensive, overly made up, too glossy, gushy, full of empty promises and prone to asking stupid questions.

Looks good but you wouldn't want to actually have to work with one all day every day.

The price is far too high for what you get - the same Microsoft crap browser, notepad and a slightly better designed email program and that's it. They didn't learn from Linux and its huge array of extra software, they didn't learn from Linux and its far superior security model and they didn't learn from Apple's superior design. They trail everyone, copying other people's ideas (badly) then attempting to sell them as their own at bloated prices. It's only because they are protected by the US Gov and already have that "freight train out of control" movement style that keeps them going. If they were a startup they'd be laughed out of the market place.

MS should admit to what they do best - provide a platform for games, and then stick to it. Leave operating systems to people who understand them.

Now that is what Vista should be, with very new hardware it runs OK, but code bloat and extra features have caused it to chug a bit. Strange when those extra feature are promoted as a reason to buy it.

Now Apple have announced that the next version of OS X is going to focus on speed, small foot print and reliability maybe Microsoft will copy them, and sort out Vista, after all it is only the OS it should only really be running your programs, do that nice and fast and make sure it doesn't crash and they will have happy customers. Microsoft have seemed to forget that.

I blame Balmer, then again I blame him when it rains.

I got pissed off with having to reactivate XP , and then to add insult to injury I had to do it using an INDIA based site (help site ?).

The hard work trying to communicate with the indians , who probably tried hard, but their INDIALISH meant a very hard exercise .

The sad thing is that I purchased an HP Officejet Pro L7580 printer, and had to use

a help line in INDIA also , which was an useful as a broken leg, My friendly local computer man fixed my problem for me.

For me , Microsoft and Indian help centres will be avoided at all costs.

I am using Ubuntu 8.04 now, and am most happy.

God bless the creator -of Ubuntu.

Shame on you HP for going the cheap and useless way.

Paris seems the most appropriate icon .

I have happily been using Vista for 6-7mths on a laptop I was previously running XP on. Yep, I have fugured out how to turn off a few of the more annoying features (UAC was the biggy) but otherwise I have nothing to complain about.

Have the detractors ever played about on the O/S? If not, they should give it a go before passing judgement, you never know they may be surprised.

Stop sign 'cos currently the detratctors are simply following the Apple media machine.

Apparently these 24 success stories aren't running Vista at all - just the service pack.

But have you tried XP (or Ubuntu for that matter) on that Core Duo with 4GB? I guarantee, you WON'T think Vista's running well after you see how something else runs on that.. those are incredibly high specs by any but Vista standards. This is what people object to about Vista (well, among other things).. you simply shouldn't need that much hardware just to make an OS run worth a damn.

I am responsible for an IT organization, upgrades, maintenance, etc. What can I say about Vista, well there is a good reason a lot of companies have not moved to it. Not just because you can downgrade to XP, thank heavens Microsoft got that right, it may be the single saving grace of Vista, the ability to downgrade to XP. The Vista glitz is nice but, the basic OS should be working. We tried it on a few test machines. Vista made device drives for basic services like the CDROM or DVD stop functioning. Why try living with an OS, like VISTA, when if you need Microsoft, you could just keep XP, which actually, more or less works. So, pay money to upgrade to Vista only to have it un-install devices or cause software faults? I think not.

"Come on Ben, your average punter doesn't see it that way. A working system gets 'upgraded' to Vista and it stops working. Whose fault is that? I suppose next you'll be saying it's the punter's own fault for expecting a product that works in return for their money!"

Come on Paul, your average punter never upgrades an OS. They buy it as part of their 'new' computer.

I got a free copy from MS of the Ultimate version, and have it installed on a dual-boot Intel Mac. As it came free, I thought I'd install it, and use it when the need would arise. I must have used it twice in over a year now... and when I do, I finish what I need to do and go back to something else as soon as I can.

Of all the OS's I use in various places (Win2000, WinXP, various Linux, Mac OS X), Vista strikes me as the one I prefer the least. If it works for you and you like it, fine, use it, by all means. I think it's a dog of an OS, so I don't.

My 2 sons both upgraded to Vista solely for DX10 which a lot of the newer games require.

Both working well thanks. Their machines make Roadrunner look a bit pale though ...

Me, I'm sticking to XP, which I changed to from Win98 only about 3 years ago

Have both Vista (came with the cheap laptop) and XP on machines at home. Using both, the question I ask is "Vista - why bother?". Much higher hardware requirements for what in the end is a more flashy Alt-Tab experience.

Windows Vista - mostly pointless

Um, maybe it's cause I just woke up - but from what I read in the article he's not exactly slating it.

I'm with Ben Edwards on this one. Seen Vista on thousands of machines. From Quad Core 8Gb desktops through to my own home PC of a P4 3Ghz with 1.5Gb. Works fine on all of them. Only seems to run worse than XP on machines that were "budget" 5 years ago. (P4 2Ghz or less and uner a gig of RAM.)

Take a peek at www.neowin.net's home page for the member poll. As it's not a windows fanboi site but a IT news site it's a pretty good indication.

Oh - and BTW OSS / Mac fanboi's - on the same merit of such as "small" installation base for Vista - what does that say about Linux and OS X? (As Vista has a much, much bigger installation base than them)

My god i must have slept well. I substituted Charles for Chuck and immediately thought of that russian remote controlled mp botherer. Didn't read any more after that.

Well, not really interesting, as the article doesn't really say anything we didn't already know.

Though I might perhaps advise the author to be more careful in writing articles that include source names of "DiBona" and expressions such as a "if you look hard enough"

Paris, because I've never done it before (nor her, for that matter). And she'd probably like to meet Mr. DiBona.

"Those of us that use Vista don't seem to have any strange trouble that is typically talked about in articles like this. The naysayers seem to be the ones with journo badges, linux/apple fanbois, and luddites."

... and Microsoft's own executives. One Mike Nash:

"I PERSONALLY got burned ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine."

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/business/09digi.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1213254812-d6D4v/z5NQj5lQ2i8qyeeQ>

As the New York Times comments:

"We usually do not have the opportunity to overhear Microsoft’s most senior executives vent their personal frustrations with Windows. But a lawsuit filed against Microsoft in March 2007 in United States District Court in Seattle has pried loose a packet of internal company documents."

Unfortunate that business of document discovery in court cases. Owing to our now having seen Microsoft internal documents, we're in a position to know that even they know they screwed up. What people say behind closed doors ...

In essences (certainly in the case of my employer) it doesn’t make a difference whether corporates run Vista or not because they pay for it anyway as part of their annual software license deal. Where it really matters is the home market, people buying new PCs, and by all reckoning this has been a huge success. I use and like Vista on my home machines and it’s a nice consumer OS for email, web, photos etc. I use XP at work because it’s quicker and works well for what I do at work.

Battered Vista with extra chips?

Do you get ketchup with that?

I'm with Ben. Of course if you've got a 3-4 year old box that's running XP with no problems, you shouldn't upgrade it to Vista. It'll run like a dog unless you carefully disable all the features designed for modern, higher power PCs. The same, BTW, has been true for every new version of Windows since 3.11 and most new versions of Linux and MacOS as well. You can (if you really want to) add most of the new look and feel of Vista to an existing XP box - but then it'll probably run like a dog as well.

OTOH, if you buy a /new/ machine with a reasonable spec (and these days that would include all desktops and almost all laptops) it should run Vista without problems.

I've been running Vista on two machines - purchased in the last year so reasonable spec (and *had* to get Vista).

The only problem I've encountered is the really really really slow file transfers - it just plain sucks having whizzy SATA drives, a bog standard 100mbps network and finding it takes much longer to copy files between 2 vista machines than from an 8 year old pc to a 5 year old laptop (both running XP).

However, as a previous poster mentioned, Vista doesn't give me much that I didn't have with XP and I can't help thinking how fast XP would run on my newer machines.

I've had no issues with Vista either. Neither has my immediate superior, my girlfriend, or any of my collegues. The common factors are A) They all paid for it, and B) they all did clean installs from a DVD.

The difference before and after reformatting my own PC, on which it came preinstalled was immense. Prior to reformatting: DVD's wouldn't play owing to some broken DRM feature, games based on the source engine only ran on their minimum settings, and boot time was pretty poor (+2 minutes). Post formatting: DVD's play, I can play The Orange Box on recommended and boot time is under 1 minute.

The important thing to note is that prior to reformatting, I blamed Vista for these issues, because I couldn't see any software that could be causing them, and I knew my hardware was capable. It makes me wonder how many of the "ZOMG M$ VISTAIDS RUINED MY PC!" crowd have the same issues.

I've been using it for about a year or so now, and it has NEVER crashed. Not once. Not so much as started doing unusual things warranting a reboot.

I'll grant you I've had some crap TP drivers and some slightly unusual effects with certain old software, but the meat and potatoes of the OS are hard to fault on stability.

I wonder how many of those so quick to tout Vista's failings and advocate rolling back to XP Pro have used it (*really* used it) for any prolonged period?

My video card (S3-based Diamond from 1999) was NOT supported (using a generic driver for S3-boards work fine under Linux). I DID blame Microsoft for not supporting run-of-the-mill RECENT hardware (they did supply a driver for the much older Matrox Millenium I had in another box). They also failed to support the Adaptec 2940UW SCSI adapter the moment I plugged in a 9GB Quantum Viking II disk with an image of Win 3.1 on it (boot failure: box dead in the water, no matter what you said about boot order, and it DID boot under SUSE 8, so it was not a hardware issue).

Problems with hardware are an OS issue! The very core function of an OS is to provide a hardware abstraction layer on which the programs can function properly. Unless the hardare malfunctions at a physical level, you cannot claim it is a hardware problem. Claiming that the drivers are not available, and it is therefore not Microsofts fault does have some merit, but lack of driver support has always been one of the most quoted problems of Linux (sometimes true, I know), so why should Windows not be criticized for this problem if it exists.

So if I have a box which works fine under XP and it fails to perform under Vista, I have every right to complain about it. I do not doubt it would run smoothly on my current configuration (Core2-Quad at 2.6 GHz, Geforce 8600 GT with 512 MB, 2GB RAM), but I have not seen a good reason pay good money for it. I haven't even bothered testing it.

I have tried Vista for a couple of months, it does have problems, so I went back to XP. I am certainly no less productive nor any less secure. So what are the real advantages of Vista, basically "None" for the enterprise. We can already script most tasks with 2003/XP and security lies more in the hands of the SysAdmin /Company polices rather than in the OS.

I would be happy to use Vista if they stripped out all of the crap/bloatware and made it run on basic systems. What is really going on the background that requires a minimum of 2Gb RAM, 3.0Ghz Core Duo. Do people actually realize what 3.0Ghz represents. 3 000 000 000 Cycles par second. Thats a hell of a lot of cycles. ( Just to open a damed text file, that seems a little overboard, no).

But in any event lets face it, what can ANY new OS possibly offer that will increase productivity, which is what companies want. Joe Consumer doesn't need more than

Notepad or Lotus 123 ( version DOS, circa 1982) for all he ever does.

A new productive OS might include the following :

1 : No Internet Browser.

2 : No Instant Messaging.

3 : No Torrents.

4 : No Music.

5 : No networked gaming.

6 : No Social networking.

7 : No 3D graphically amusing ( for 3 mins) interface requiring a 256Mo dedicated graphics card.

Remove all of these and watch productivity soar when the (L)users no longer have any "distractions". But in that case, I wouldn't have any reason for coming into the office either.

I can imagine that we will be heading back to Mainframes/Thin Clients ( Call it Cloud Computing) in the near future. Standalone OS's have nothing left to offer that can benefit the company, except for the (l)users who need there daily dose of Pron whilst commuting.

[Skull and xbones, because computings dead, MS has gone a killed it off- Long Live Pencil and Paper].

"I haven't had any problems with Vista either (used at work), and am tired of all the negative comments. Mind you, it is more expensive than XP, does no more than XP and needs better hardware."

And you don't see this as a problem because...?

"Mind you, it is more expensive than XP, does no more than XP and needs better hardware. Apart from that: Great OS!"

How can that be great, the OS is just a layer on which applications sit on top of, why should it need shit hot hardware and cost a lot.

When Vista came out we bought a box for our office, it was sluggish, took ages to configure (I can pretty much navigate 2K, XP & *nix blind without a mouse). I don't honestly believe that an OS with a fluffy interface is needed in an office setup. The important part of applications are inside the windows, not the frames.

But then I run an office which is full of self employed people, so they actually do work (or else they don't get any money). Yes, maybe that's the difference.

No Bill's evil icon, because if you're stupid enough to deploy it, you deserve it.

Yep, runs fine for me too, on new AND old hardware. Vista is absolutely fine, bar a couple of rarely-needed services that are installed and running by default (Windows Search, I'm looking at you).

Funnily enough, all the furore about shit performance turned out to be badly written drivers by 3rd parties, but you don't hear the detractors holding their hands up to that, do you?

And all the OSX fanbois can just fuck off - it's a piece of piss to rip off Linux and get it running on your tied-down over-priced glossy hardware platform, then crow at the competition because they have a hard time supporting hardware for virtually anything. If you want to look trendy, buy a fucking Audi TT, not a computer. Please, just go away and give us all peace.

Only the linux boys have ANY right to crow at Vista.

Hee! Late night fun. Well, before this grows to eight zillion comments about "I use Vista, and it's great, you are all plonkers," "use mac/linux/a broken abacus it's better!!!11!111oneone," and "VistAIDS is fail," let me be the first to say:

I for one, welcome our crap OS overlords.

That siad, it's troll time.

<Troll>

Linux: I love you. You make my web servers spin. You don't talk to all the proprietary third party software my business requires to run, and this makes me cry. You make good web servers, but Open Source egotism, massive fracturing and lack of focus means you may never be more than a server to me. Oh how I wish you were ready to replace all the bits and bobs I need. (Having drivers for most of my printers, and being able to share them out to windows boxes properly would be a great start.)

Mac: Let me count the ways I loathe you. From your unwillingness to run anything made in Java properly, to my inability to properly control you from a directory server, to the administrative overhead required to make you talk and play nice with operating systems made by other vendors. I completely detest you, and all of the mad, mad people who try to run our Java apps on you. Mac, please do me a favor, and either license the damned tech required to work properly in a mixed environment, or just...disappear. Thank you.

Vista: Everything I complained about above for the Mac and Linux goes double for you. Please, either license the tech to work in a mixed, (or even Windows) environment, or GTFO. I don't know which department at Microsoft isn't working with the other, but these network transfer issues, GPO application issues, and the complete inability of explorer to save anyone's settings really must go away now. I know you believe it's not "your fault" you can't properly interact with programs and servers from other vendors. Those Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 servers are just so *foreign.* Gods forbid you be able to use a printer driver from a previous incarnation of Windows. Who cares if it was a $50,000 device with a life expectancy of 10 years made by a company that got eaten by someone else. They should backport just for you, or better yet buy all new equipment to replace that which works perfectly well! Well, um...no. Please, please please...die.

XP: Why hello there. How are you doing. Want to go out for tea? Dah-ling, you look just mah-velous today. You just...work. Now, a few things such as, for example, system restore, security centre, indexing, and that really inept firewall/ICS package of yours can cheerfully go to the “disabled” bin, but those I can nuke from orbit with a GPO. You run all the little Java apps I send at you from everyone quite nicely, most things have drivers for you, (or your wonderful little brother, Windows 2000, which you so kindly are able to use,) and you talk to other operating systems not just in a stable fashion, but at full speed! The files on that server over yonder on the network, I can delete/move/transfer them without strange glitches, or insane overconfiguration! Please, stick around for just a while longer.

So before all of you [x]'tards get out your spleen venting, let me troll each and every last one of you with this little gem: "it doesn't matter what is 'best', or 'newest' or 'most secure'.

What matters is what works, because when it doesn't work, a business doesn't make money. After "working" comes (distantly,) "security" then "best" then "newest." In about that order of priority. After decades of working with insecure Microsoft operating systems, most sysadmins have a good deal of experience recovering from a security breach or failure. Improvements are welcome, but not at the cost of basic functionality. Windows XP on a Server 2000 or Server 2003 Active Directory, with Outlook on top of Exchange is a system businesses trust because a) it works, b) people who can make it work are cheap and plentiful and c) it's dirt simple and *familiar* to the majority of users who have to use it. We may not like it, but those are the considerations that sell the majority of software to the majority of businesses.

Fanboyism and religion aside.

</troll>

Mine's the one with the EEEPC, RDPing into the XP VM in the pocket.

...is a hi-def TV. Vista seems to have been hobbled from Day 1 by the need to keep "premium content" safe. Unfortunately businesses don't do "premium content", you work on their computers, you don't watch movies.

So maybe the failure of Vista is that MSFT designed it as a high end multimedia center and then tried to convince businesses that they needed it in the workplace. It was a nice idea in theory -- the OS renders existing office systems unusable so they need replacing, the whole thing being a great way for everyone to make money. Too bad the businesses didn't fall for it.

"we assume they mean Windows XP. Which you can still buy, if you look hard enough."

Most of the box shifters and now offering XP Pro as build as well as Vista.

It used to be just XP Home OEM but now you can get XP Pro installed without it being an optional extra or to do it yourself.

No need to look hard - thanks to Vista it's everywhere.

... But maybe not in the way Microsoft expected.

I saw it running on various computers, and hated almost everything about it - system requirements most of all. I thought, 'Oh well, I suppose we'll eventually have to upgrade anyway -after all, what else is there?'

But before making the plunge, I decided that this time I would investigate this 'Linux' thing. Getting used to it was slightly painful, but probably less so than the switch from Windows 98 to XP. And we've been blown away by its performance, even on antique PCs that were still running 98 because they didn't have the power for XP.

I'm not a Linux 'fanboy' (Not quite. Not yet.) But at present I can't imagine what Microsoft would have to do to Windows to tempt me back. Also, I haven't had so much fun with computers since the days when I bought my Sinclair ZX81.

So, thank you, Microsoft!

"Vista: now we've fixed it, it's no worse than XP"

"All the people I know having problems 'with Vista' are amazed to find out that their problems are actually hardware and/or non-Microsoft related."

Isn't that prescisely the problem??! I have invested a lot of time and money in getting my system to work the way it should. Along comes Microsoft, promising the Earth, telling me that if I buy Vista, my system will work even better than it does, only to find it doesn't work at all with the configuration I've got.

Do I get a new kit to satisfy an operating system or do I get an operating system to drive the hardware I've already got? Don't think it's a difficult choice unless you are on mega-money like Mr. Gates and/or don't give a shit about the environment.

Is Vista any relation to Rasta?

Once all the rage amongst the trendy, but now a specialist sector for the fervent advocate?!

Vista nags you and nanny-knows-best you and puts files in odd places (rather than letting you choose their destination).

But what really irritates me is the continuing growth of the Windows operating system beyond the dangerously ramshackle behemoth that is XP (especially with SP2). This at a time of ever-growing threats from viruses and trojans.

Nobody in their right mind goes around deleting DLLs for fun yet already XP doesn't seem to let you delete rogue DLL's put there by trojans (even if you start the computer in Safe Mode/Command Prompt).

Hey, it's my computer and I'll delete stuff if I want to !

MS seems to go on aping Apple products' disregard for logic in favour of slickness and alleged simplicity of use that maddens me every time I use one (even when I have to use iTunes for Windows).

I mean, I still don't understand why My Computer in XP lists the Desktop as a separate entity when it is actually a directory (sorry, Folder) in Drive C: It may be convenient (or something) but it's not true. That typifies to me the way that Apple's influence actually makes it more confusing to understand the basics of computing (such as file systems) at any depth beyond that of the average Mac user.

Why have WEP and WPA have been renamed in Vista (again a borrowing from Apple ?) adding a new layer of mystification as hardware makers still use the existing terms.

Many of us would have welcomed Vista and put up with the irritating changes in the way we had to work if it had actually been smaller and quicker than XP. If it had been cheaper as a result, more people would be prepared to buy the OS rather than use naughty copies.

MS should be taking the lead in slimming down their next OS to make better use of the energy that PC's use just to stay up and running. My main reason for not buying a new PC or installing Vista on any PC is the increased heat output caused by wasted resources (CPU, disk, etc). My office is hot enough as it is in summer without a vista PC adding to the temperature.

I'm no marketing man and I don't have the breadth of technical knowledge demonstrated by some contributors to the Reg but it seems to me that the biggest problem with Vista is the overly-powerful hardware it needs for no net benefit. It provides no improvement over XP but at a high cost. Microsoft need to change their approach to Windows 7.

Basically, start from scratch with all they've learnt about operating systems in the last xx years. 64-bit only, no backward compatibility, no labyrinthine inter-dependencies to win anti-trust cases just the cleanest, leanest most stable and secure operating system they can build. Declare from the start that this is a clean start and there will be, at best, limited support for older hardware. They can continue to sell XP alongside this for those that absolutely need backward compatibility but over time people will want the cleaner, more stable, FASTER OS and will migrate. The gravy train picks up speed again and they can continue adding their customary cruft with subsequent releases.

That's my 2 cents.

"Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I haven't had a single problem with Vista since installing it nigh on 12 months ago...and I know I'm not the only one. All the people I know having problems 'with Vista' are amazed to find out that their problems are actually hardware and/or non-Microsoft related."

Are you mad?

My problems with Vista aren't hardware related, they're interface design related.

I have set the visible columns to be those in XP and applyed them to all folders, yet every time I go into a folder, the displayed columns have changed because I dropped a picture in, so instead of the name/size/filetype/date modified columns I want, I now have tags, rating and a load of other columns which bare no relation to the other files in the folder. The same with mp3s.

I like to see these details so why does it randomly change the view to large icons.

Except in the folder I have on the desktop filled with shortcuts which will not stay as icons and remains firmly as details, no matter what I do.

And date modified, if I copy a file, the date modified has become the datetime I moved it, not the original. Why?

Why is "Business fax" for example in the list of available columns in my mp3 folders?

Why switch the behaviour of the context menu for Open and Explore, which now do the opposite to what they did in XP? I wish to Open this folder or Explore it in Explorer has become I wish to Open this in Explorer and Explore this folder.

Why?

The intensely aggravating dropdowns in the column headers which I keep catching when I have to resize the column width AGAIN. Stack by Name? Why? Are people so thick that they can't tell where the As in a list stop and the Bs start? And when you do click on anything in these menus it goes of and does a search before it sorts them. They're there what exactly is it searching for?

When copying/moving files instead of a standard "Are you sure?" yes/no/cancel box, you now have a number of different dialogs that pop up, and where you click to say yes/no/cancel is different on each.

On the task bar vertical and horizontal have become side by side and stacked?

Why, are words of more than one syllable to difficult for microsoft employees and focus groups to understand?

Me and the lad I sit next to were both sentenced to Vista at the same time and he goes on about how marvellous it is and how much better than XP it is, yet still swears at it when it does something insane, AGAIN. Denial is not just a river in Egypt as they say.

We've had the new office with the ribbon at the same time and at first the ribbon seemed to be okay, but as I've used it more it annoys me more. There's no indication whether there are more menu options which you can't see because you don't have the window wide enough, with the result that you have to have the window maximised just to make sure.

Is the option I want not there because it's not something I can do at the moment or has it moved? With a disabled button you know that you can't do the operation at this time for some reason.

As for the right click supersized context menu, I think I can cope with rolling my mouse up 2 inches and clicking the bold button if I need to, covering up sections of the text is pointless and aggravating.

If anyone knows how to tame vista so it does what I want instead of what redmond wants, then please let me know because at the moment it's like riding a recalcitrant donkey which is forever lurching off it's own way instead of ploughing a straight furrow, to mix metaphors.

If there are options to tick/untick I'll gladly tick/untick them and try again, but as it stands the only advantage of vista so far is it shows dialog boxes on the Win+Tab whirly thing which Alt+Tab doesn't.

If a luddite is someone who wants the computer to do what they want not what someone else thinks I want, then yes, I'm a luddite.

If a luddite is someone who, when they put something down, expects it to be there when I go back to it, then yes, I'm a luddite.

Disliking something new for valid reasons is not being a luddite.

Is there a word for anti-luddite, the love of new stuff because it's new?

My PC came with Vista installed, and I had no downgrade option.

You ask if people have benefitted from Vista. I can honestly say, no, not really. I'd imagine my PC would run XP in a much smoother way, and probably a little faster.

The thing is, I don't really care. It does what I need, and it does it in a stable environment. Granted all I do is browse the net, listen to music and use a few guitar related apps, but still, it works, no questions asked.

This is all I need.

The question is, would I benfit from downgrading to XP? The answer, barring a slight increase in speed, would be no.

I'm a developer and I've been using Vista since it was released. Ok, in the very early days there were a few problems with old/crappy drivers, Visual Studio had some incompatibility issues. But once the driver vendors updated their drivers and SP1 came out, it's been fine. I wouldn't go back to XP that's for sure.

I have absolutely no problems running Vista SP1 64Bit on Ultimate. It runs very well and handles a vast array of open programs with ease.

Saying that, I agree that the OS doesnt have enough punch to warrant the extra hardware required. I forked out for an uber PC to get it to run well. What I now have is a very smooth & fast system with (as yet) no crashes or halts. The average home or corporate user isn't going to want to fork out on a new PC capable of running Vista at a sensible level so all in all I do agree that Vista is a hard OS to promote.

I bought a laptop a few months ago. Dual core, Nvidia GPU, 2GB RAM, with Vista pre-installed.

I will say that after installing Vista SP1 it did *mostly* stop freezing up at random. I turned off Aero as while it's pretty I'd rather my system spent its time on what I want it to rather than on eye candy. The security "features" really do get in the way sometimes.

There's one program that requires Administrator privileges so I set it to have them. Every time I run it via its desktop shortcut Vista complains that the program needs Administrator access to run. Fortunately when I tell it to continue (by hitting "Cancel") it still works. Yah. Cancel to continue, OK to quit.Thanks Microsoft.

Then there's the Office 2007 preinstall, which as others have pointed out is a definite trap for the unwary.

Overall the performance is probably now on par with what my old P3 laptop (64MB RAM) was doing back in 2000.

So after several years we have an OS with the same performance, but only on vastly superior hardware. I do *not* want to buy new hardware every few years just to feed the Microsoft monopoly.

"Come on Ben, your average punter doesn't see it that way. A working system gets 'upgraded' to Vista and it stops working. Whose fault is that? I suppose next you'll be saying it's the punter's own fault for expecting a product that works in return for their money!"

So Paul, are you a Vista user or have you just vindicated Ben's statement?

Your "average punter" doesn't read the manual, doesn't run drive error checking and never defrags their drive, go figure.

I've been a Vista user since just after release and I did have some driver compatibility issues (which are obviously the fault of the manufacturer's and not Microsoft - yes Creative, I'm looking at you) but I've had no issues at all that I can blame on MS.

You'll find that many Vista users share this same opinion, the vast majority in fact (otherwise, why would they use it?). So thanks for your unique insight into the world of Paul, now can we get back to reality?

They said it is selling more and a really good product after a year? I am confused at that, no one likes it, businesses aren't buying it because of the added hardware upgrade and support issues and it is pants with a capital C, R, A and P

And where was the mention of people buying it and downgrading.

And the 15% bonus to M$ is because it costs so much in rip off britain because M$ are taking the micheal.

i like your books , although they can tend to be a touch Deus Ex Machina at the end, but have lots of nice ideas getting there so it's always worth a read...

I have a friend in DEFRA who's struggling with a new Thinkpad with Vista on it. Baaa.

Yes, a bunch of nay-sayers have created a lack of demand so vast they're down $49 million a year... Huge businesses that generally blindly buy any new MS product are not buying Vista. These must be some very powerful nay-sayers.

How did Microshit ever get so big? They really are the shittest company peddling the shittest products possible. I guess people are just morons. Microshit gargles balls.

I use Ubuntu/Vista/XP/2K and am no particular fan of any of them but can say that Vista would not be my OS of choice. 2 Identical laptops one with XP other with Vista and oh my what a difference. Vista is slow, often refuses to install such dodgy programs as MS Autroute 2007 and Coreldraw whilst XP runs fine. Swapped OS on each of the laptops and the problems followed the OS.

Ubuntu considering it is free suits for some things though personally I would put it on par with 2K in ability.

All in all I think of Vista as a complete waste of money.

asta ... Is a website reference not a spelling mistake.

Don't you guys get bored of having the same "discussion" (and I use the term loosely) over and over?

At the risk of getting flamed, I haven't had any problems with Vista since I finally got a machine with it pre-installed a few months back. The only time it's crashed is during playing Crysis (which is notorious for it). I was lucky enough to get work to pay for a quad core with 4Gb of RAM, so I guess my usability rating would be higher than many other people though.

However, the big question is, would I have actually paid for an upgrade from XP? To which the answer is no. I like the improved search, and I even think the sidebar is quite nice, but really there's nothing there that XP couldn't have been if it was written properly in the first place.

So I won't be downgrading to XP, but the only way I'll be using Vista on my other machines is when the time comes to replace them. By which time we'll probably be installing,"Windows, fuck me, that's amazing" edition instead, along with the 32Gb of RAM required for it too.

Paris, because she can "hog my resources" any time...

I had a first-gen Titantium Powerbook that was purchased with OS9 installed and ran through 10.3 nicely with a speed bump at EVERY OS UPGRADE and only replaced it with an iBook G4 -- which apparently also runs FASTER with 10.5 than the pre-installed 10.4 -- after it got dropped a couple of times and suffered a logic board failure. That and the fact that all Macs have had FW as standard for nearly a decade makes your post completely bizarre as well as totally WRONG.

Well I am one of those that brought Vista, used it, then uninstalled it and put XP back in place.

Though I had no "problems" running Vista, there is a very simple trade off

Speed vs Pointless UI Dumming Down

I choose to be able to work without screaming at the PC to hurry up.

I've got a decent machine, yet Vista cripples it.

This is 2008 - why the hell should I accept a SLOWER OS that gives me no real benefits over my older OS?

I expect that all those who are truly happy with their Vista installation are the same ones that turn the other cheek when someone slaps them, accepting their lot in life.

For gods sakes grow some balls and dont accept this kind of crap from ANY supplier.

Its just a pity that I actually gave the bastards my money. I wish the OFT would uphold my complaint and force M$ to give it back as I am unstatisfied that my purchase was worth the time taken for me to take it out of the packet

given that my job involves fixing various forms of Windows, I can assure you that Vista is indeed less stable, and much more annoying, than XP.

The fact that you, personally, have had no problems establishes nothing. Your sample size (one) is statistically insignificant.

My grandad smoked every day until he was 90 - didn't kill him. Ergo, it's safe for everyone. Fancy a fag?

Quite possible. But, it has been tried in the past, and when people and business could afford their own systems they jumped at the chance.

Though MS use to talk about riding the bear IBM, and this is in line with their business practices.

And a number of software companies are trying this one on; Google, IBM, MS, Sun all of them really, they all want to 'look after' your data.

Consumers still have not woken up to the fact that the data is the important thing, they see a machine costing 200 quid and equate everything around that, they find it hard to see that by adding data to the system the value of the system increases many fold. That view tends to persist right up until they have a crash.

Hardware manufacturers are pretty savvy though as well, and whilst open source exists there is always an out. And most companies are not that stupid, they know the value is in the data, and how they can personally manipulate and control that data in their business segment. The real trick is never to employ the big guys for your IT needs, much better off with a load of small outfits to supply your IT; helps to get the mix just right.

I loved this bit: "The single biggest barriers to adoption are the operating system's gluttonous hardware requirements. Driver and application compatibility, pricing and performance are also key issues."

That leaves what? It looks pretty. Ok. Anything else?

Also, the above post about perceived Vista problems being "actually hardware and/or non-Microsoft related" sounds a lot like saying injuries from the Titanic wreck were actually just passenger problems: they were incompatible with freezing water. Can't blame the ship for that.

It's funny. When Linux drivers suck, it's the fault of hardware makers, but when Windows drivers suck it's the OS's fault.

The lovely swish M$ videos show the companies mentality.

I tried to watch them on a 2Mb corporate line which is normally good enough for streamed video. In this case the video spent 3 minutes buffering, played 30 seconds and stopped for a minute or two, repeat until end.

Obviously I got bored before the end of one video, never mind 24...

Windows Vista is a very good looking OS (which is seriously lacking in *nix OS's), but I want a computer to compute, not look good.

Same as the video, long time to start, then every few minutes it needs a little nap.

Personally, I run a XP desktop for me to interact with ('cos it looks nice) and everything important goes on an OpenBSD server, which certainly is "safer, easier, more reliable and more versatile" than most operating systems.

When M$ stop trying to hawk rubbish because it looks nice I'll rejoin the flock. Until then my ageing XP system will be tweaked until it fails to be usable (10 years perhaps) and then I'll go to Linux :)

Paris because she too looks very nice, but just doesn't work

MS got so big by using clever license agreements with OEMs (you can only sell OUR software or we won't do business with you) and being very very sharp when it came to eliminating the competition (legally or not).

The problem is, it is now too big. The corporate inertia is such that they couldn't change direction if they wanted. Yes, as some posters have said above, they should introduce a new OS for Windows 7 (or 8), 64-bit only, limited backwards compatability, adherence to standards (I wish) etc, but it won't happen, precisely because they are so big. Too many people would just not buy the software because it wouldn't work in their environment and would cost too much to upgrade all of their applications/hardware to support the new OS. It would be corporate suicide for MS.

MS are caught between a rock and a hard place. If they introduce something completely radical (see above) then it won't sell because of the cost of upgrading to support the new OS is prohibitive.

I have to say though, IMHO, the best OS is the one that works best for you. For me, I have XP, Vista (x64) and Fedora 9 (x64) ar home, and I rarely use the Vista install. Most of my computing is done under Fedora and most of my gaming is done under XP. Vista (despite costing me £60) is rarely used.

Andy

That's the point for me. What does Vista offer me above XP.

I have a desktop and a laptop both running XPpro.

Both have had rock solid stability.

Viruses and other nasties are held at bay by various bits of freeware and to date I've never had one that wasn't picked up before any trouble.

They are both fast and work in a way I'm happy with.

I have a free copy of Vista business which I used on the laptop for a month. After installing the second gig of ram is ran as fast (but no faster) as XP.

Battery life was significantly reduced. General use of the machine was more irritating even after switching off the Vista wagging fingers due to fans having to run faster and the constant disk access.

Other than eye candy, which I normally switch off, what does Vista offer over XP?

I never found a good reason to keep vista. I switched back to XP and I don't miss it.

"It's funny. When Linux drivers suck, it's the fault of hardware makers, but when Windows drivers suck it's the OS's fault."

Yes, what's funny about that is you must have heard it in some alternate universe.

Whenever people have told you "move to Linux" you complain that you can't afford the time to recompile your kernel. You state that the hardware support doesn't exist.

"It's funny. When Linux drivers suck, it's the fault of hardware makers, but when Windows drivers suck it's the OS's fault."

Its only the hardware makers fault if they dont release any information to the linux developers. Think about this for a min - most linux drivers are revered engineered from NO information. They usually turn out better than their windows counterparts from the real manufacturer. Linux developers are the bollocks basically.

For vista - it is MS fault. Change the way everything works and not tell anyone. No wonder drivers dont work. Linux being open source - all the changes are there for everyone to see.

Why do so many people need to defend MS to the end? Is it because you have an xbot - the best thing since slice bread.

the explorer shell in vista is borked - why should I randomly have to wait a good 20 to 30 seconds if I have the gaul to expand a folder?

Anything beyond simply dumping files onto the desktop is met with deep suspicion as I get sprurious access denieds, rediculous views (why doesn't it give me a numerical value for the size of the folder and the free space on the drive any more?), piles upon piles of dialogue boxes for simply changing folder permissions...

Then we have the frankly rediculous position of vista business not supporting the active directory admin tools!

Yes, there's a script to register the dlls, but even after that they are still quite broken.

Why can you no longer administrate your microsoft powered domain from their flagship OS without resorting to remote controlling the servers?

And why have none of you lot mentioned this yet??!

End of discussion,they know it we know it. Computing is changing, get ubuntu or just stay on xp.

I think Vista was a big mistake for Microsoft, and it will cost them a lot or possibly all of their market share eventually. They seem to be failing in every area of the market at the moment.

"Agree with above poster

By Jan

Posted Thursday 12th June 2008 00:17 GMT

Thumb Up

Yes, it is all FUD, I tell you.

I haven't had any problems with Vista either (used at work), and am tired of all the negative comments. Mind you, it is more expensive than XP, does no more than XP and needs better hardware. Apart from that: Great OS!"

This post, for those who are literally-minded and literacy-challenged, is obviously IRONIC. "Apart from that..." is the give-away.

Ironic means saying what appears to be the opposite of what you think, but with a nod and a wink to those in the know that you really mean the opposite of what you're saying.

"Wow, great shot!" when some poor sucker slams the ball into his own net.

Or the teacher's "Thank you, Einstein" on hearing the 2+2=5.

It's not very good rhetoric to use irony, cos you're preaching to the converted and unlikely to persuade those who hold the opinion you would like to see changed.

"And all the OSX fanbois can just <redacted> - it's a piece of piss to rip off Linux"

Shame, you are showing your ignorance here. Mac OSX is based on Steve Jobs' NeXT Computer Inc's NEXTSTEP OS and as such combines a Mach kernel, Display PostScript and a BSD unix API and subsystems ... it originates from 1988. [Tim Berners-Lee developed the worlds first web browser on a NeXT box at CERN in 1990]

Apple bought NeXT in 1997 for the NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP OS that OSX is directly based on and back came Steve Jobs ... the rest, as they say, is history.

Linux was started in 1991 by Linus T and has no connection with OSX. Just do some research and lookup the history of Unix-like operating systems.

Utter Bollocks alert:

"they [Apple] have LITERALLY been forcing people to buy new computers every two-three years."

My elderly parents are happily running Leopard on a 6-year old iMac G4 (runs impressively quickly, too).

"the mac has REQUIRED firewire and a G3 processor since OS 9"

Er, the G3 processor was launched in 1997 and Apple launched OS 9 in 1999, ditching it in 2002.

I find it difficult to see how you can substantiate your rather rash 'Apple screws its users into upgrading hardware to accommodate its bloatware OS every 2-3 years' claim with the evidence you present.

So on exactly what, LITERALLY, do you base it?

But then again, that kind of mastubatory blind devotion probably makes me a 'fanboi'?

I'd slap it out purely for the GPOs, new redirected folders, additional peripherals and user security, some software is becoming vista only. Although I'd only do that on new machines as the general age of IT equipment restricts the wide spread deployment of vista.. Unfortunately, depending on what type of company you have it maybe the only way of stopping data from leaving your company boundries.

Why the fuck bring up Mac ?

Nobody is forcing people to buy new Macs or to upgrade to new versions of OS-X. Nobody is forcing people to buy new PCs or to upgrade to Vista either.

The real extravagant hardware requirements of Vista have pissed people off. It doesn't work well on some very recent hardware. The problem here is maybe that the minimum h/w spec is set way too low, and this leads to disappointment (and class actions for misleading advertising).

I prefer the Apple approach. Get rid of legacy bloat on a more regular basis. Up to the point of no longer supporting the h/w, usually each successive release actually improves performance. At some point they should try to get the most of of recent hardware rather than supporting the old stuff. There's also the carrot of some of the new stuff being quite compelling (is this what you mean by 'forcing').

My experience of Vista has been OK. It's certainly easier on the eye. It's rather annoying that so much stuff has moved around for no apparent logical reason. I think it was done to try to fool us that a lot of it is new. A lot of it's not new though, it's just got a bit of slap on. That's maybe it's real problem. It didn't throw enough away. It tries to include stuff that's just too old.

There is a different business model, so comparing the two is difficult. Apple is in the business of selling hardware. It's in Apple's interest to software that makes new hardware compelling. Microsoft is in the business of selling software. It's interest is to sell to any fucker who can pay.

I have been trialing Vista for a Multinational with all of their enterprise applications and I have to say about 90% of them worked no issue. The system its self is far more stable than XP (the Dell GX620 that I am running it on came with XP and was less stable before I put vista on also not exctly massive hardware spec on a GX620) in fact the OS has not crashed in the year and a half I have been running it only applications have. The increased security that UAC and the sandboxed IE would be a good enough reason for a company to consider not downgrading to XP the only bit of FUD that I would agree with is that it is not worth either the software or hardware costs to upgrade old equipment but any new kit that comes with vista will keep it also as we move to server 2008 the other security features such as Network Access Protection and the enhanced RIS Windows Image Manager will make vista even more attractive.

I also use vista at home and that is on a three and a bit year old Acer 5020 running vista x86 at the moment but I plan to try x64 on it. The only thing I did to the three year old laptop was upgrade it to 2gb of ram but this was done before vista was released and while it is a little slower than XP it is not so much that it is noticeable when using for everyday things like playing guildwars or hellgate london (hellgate BTW recons that I need a 2.7ghz proc to play under vista but it runs quite smoothly with the 1.6ghz amd in the laptop)

Take another look at the security features of vista and also at UAC it is not something that should be turned off, if it annoys you and you have one of the none home versions of vista just set it to automatically elivate the requests that way at least you can still benefit from the sandboxed IE.

@Ben - My wife is the only one in the house who uses Vista, and she HATES it. With a vengence. It causes more swearing and instability than any of the other 6 PC's at home.

Its slow. Actually its glacially slow to open new apps, such as Word.

It continuously looses its printer connections. XP is as steady as a rock.

It is bloodyminded and spiteful. Just try to set up a custom network on it. "What, not DHCP? I really don;t want to play then". The so called administrator access is a total joke that just gets in the way of actually using the damn thing.

In fact, Vista is just "bloatware eye-candy" (c). By any reasonable definition it is a virus

Paris - because she stull has her fans and has never given in to bloat-wear.

It made me switch completely to *nix's... :P

Haven't looked back.

I paid for my copy and don't particularly regret that (it wasn't a lot more than buying XP... (both OEM)). Vista SP1 x64 is fast and stable for me. Any problems have been due to crap third party drivers.

However, despite the unix subsystem, NFS client, the readyboost, the slightly improved interface, the realtime alt tab switch list updating it still lacks any killer feature.

For a new build I have no problems with buying Vista - it's definitely a better product. If XP Pro was a third of the price, however, it might be a trickier decision..

Now i still remember when XP first came out, people had a little over 1ghz and 128mb of RAM... and it ran like crap at the time. Same's happening here, nahelem and the new generation of hardware will allow vista to run smoother.

200 ram smoother than XP on the same hardware, I would hazard a guess that 98 would run smoother than both. But As hardware moves on so will the OS' to take care of new demands and technology.

Now vista isnt the peak of perfection, but neither was XP when it first came out. SP2 is the sweet spot (havent looked at sp3 yet).

No doubt vista will be fine by SP2 but by then windows 7 may be out..

Having used both vista and XP vista has some nice touches, the interface is great and does look the part, the quick search is fantastic. The indexing service is annoying in a laptop but on a desktop its not so bad.

Vista on a dual Core with 4GB will out perform XP on any task, I'm afraid XP really isn't built with parallelism in mind like vista was, I suggest you go out and use Vista on a 4GB dual core before you pass comment.

I can't comment on Ubuntu I have only used it on a single core 2 GB machine, and after spending ages setting it up with an Nvidia card and linksys wireless card, (which failed after installing the 236 updates I was requested to install) i formatted it after 3 days it really doesn't do much, alright for a home PC maybe.

Run it like I did, in a VMWare sandbox on an Ubuntu host machine! Ran like a dream, couldn't cause trouble , and if it did, a quick flick of the virtual hardware reset button and it was nice as pie again.

Personally I couldn't see anything wrong with Vista, I just don't really like MS bloated, overpriced products or their attitude to helping their valued, paying customers, especially when I can get free O/Ss with just as many bugs, advantages, good and bad bits. We all want something for nothing right?

Loads of people moaned about it being slow, needing much more memory and faster hardware to run.

Fast forward to today.

Vista is way ahead of its time, so much so that older hardware isn't good enough for it.

Vista isn't perfect but its slightly better in a couple of areas lacking in XP, security and look & feel, but remember XP? It was slightly better at the time but at least they didn't put a bloody tellitubbies look and feel on it this time, it looks well decent, and gives osx a run for its money.

All the problems they are having will be fixed sooner or later, i'm going to get a new laptop and try it out i've heard mixed feelings about it but i know a couple of people who've had no problems and some that have had driver issues but thats same same compared to when XP came out.

We'll all have to upgrade sooner or later, its 2008 and we're still running an antique UI back from the days of windows 95 (for those that turned off tellytubby land)

I'm going to try it first for myself then i'll blast it only if i've had problems with it not before.

(btw I have a lot of linux server boxes and swear by it but they still don't cut the mustard in terms of compatibility with windows desktop apps, and i'm used to windows.. like a lot of server admins)

"Those of us that use Vista don't seem to have any strange trouble that is typically talked about in articles like this. The naysayers seem to be the ones with journo badges, linux/apple fanbois, and luddites."

Where have you been? Under a damn rock? Sure it works for some people, it'd be ridiculous to think otherwise, but that's not the issue. The problem is the overwhelming number of people that have severe problems. The success of a very limited population of users doesn't support calling Vista a success or even a good program.

And of course MS will facilitate "upgrading" Vista machines to XP. Hello!! They get to sell two operating systems for each of those machines. Not to mention Linux being kept away.

The only things keeping Vista on the market at all are MS's stubbornness and their very deep corporate pockets. If Vista were almost any other commercial product, it'd have been pulled from the market long ago. But, Vista is not American tomatoes so it's own special poison keeps being sold.

Have Vista on a nice work laptop, Sony Vaio - 2.2Ghz Intel Dual Core, 2 Gb ram....and it is really quite disappointing. Yes it works, yes it does not crash..(of neither did XP) but it all feels a little sluggish. IMHO this machine should fairly zip along - probably would with XP. Still thinking about multi-patitioning and going with Vista, XP and Ubunto to get a fair comparison.

Paris - oh I dunno - becuse she has a pleasing vista

I bought it and am happy with it. But the article's right - there's only one feature worth buying it for - DirectX10. And if Microsoft had deemed to make DX10 available for XP, there would be no reason to buy Vista. This makes me dislike Microsoft, but it sells a copy of Vista. When will there be an alternative for PC gamers?

Vista system that appeared to work OK until one day booted with problem connecting to network (which it had been connected to via Cat 5 cable). Showed as "Unidentified Network" with "Access: Local Only". Booted using Knoppix CD, connected to internet OK so all hardware working OK. Rebooted Vista but still had the same problem. Had to repair by using repair disc. Luckily Knoppix allowed backup of data.

Couldn't be the crappy code that Microsoft write?

I'd always like the idea of being a Linux user but windows was just easier before vista. So I played with Linux but never made the switch.

The I bought a new laptop with a Core2Duo 2.4 processor and 2G of RAM and an nVidia chip. It came with Vista Business.

Vista seemed sluggish and kept telling me, somewhat proudly, that it had blocked a lot of the programs I installed because of the security policy set up by the administrator (me). And there was nothing I could do about it, by the looks of things.

So I installed Ubuntu and never looked back.

I'll admit I'm a UNIX geek and Linux may not be for everyone, but Vista is the thing tha finally tipped me over the edge and made me go full-time Linux. It's slow, indecisive ("Are you sure you want to that? I'll need your permission to do that. And again. Oh please, just tell me what to do, I'm not sure!"), it's restrictive, and just generally annoying.

As a software engineer I must say I find the environment a difficult one to live with as well, specifically the "protection" of the program files folder and its corresponding per-user virtual filesystem. It's a mess.

I just hope it goes away. it was a shame that Microsoft announced that Windows 7 won't use the nice stripped down and re-architected kernel they have. By the sounds of it they'll just be polishiung a turd and trying to sell it as gold.

"it really doesn't do much, alright for a home PC maybe."

Uh, the range of software available, and available for free at that, is massively more on Ubuntu thatn it is on Windows.

May I ask what you wanted to do but couldn't? I use Redhat Linux as my main machine at work and Ubuntu at home. I have yet to find anything I want to do on Windows that I can't do on Linux.

And that includes using Steam and playing Portal.

When the fuck did half you guys try running Vista?! Hardware and drives haven't been an issue for the past 12 months. Maybe late 2006 and the first quarter of 2007 the drivers were flakey as hell (TP ones were. The ones MS published themselves "out-of-the-box" were fine.) and were few and far between.

Since then and a clean, retail (or volume licence) install of Vista on any hardware purchased in the last 4 years and it'll run as well as any other OS. Gig of RAM and a low-end Dual Core will do fine. (High-end P4 will run it OK). Any box above 2 cores and 2Gb RAM will fly with Vista in comprision to XP.

Strangely, one of the reasons my co-workers prefer's rolling out Vista to XP is the fact that he doesn't have to spend all fucking day searching the net for a WinXP NIC driver - Vista just has them in the box.

In terms of why to upgrade, the biggest reasons are mainstream support from MS and security. UAC is a vast improvement over the previous WinNT security models that finally makes sense. A volume licence customer will not be paying for Vista - but just gets the latest client when it's released. As such if your hardware isn't archaic (e.g. the last 4 years or so) then you have nothing to lose other than better security, a more slick interface and integrated search. (Oh, and BitLocker, IE7+ sandboxed, better driver support out of the box, previous versions, DX10, new GPO's etc.)

"The mac has REQUIRED firewire and a G3 processor since OS 9. Oh yeah, ur motherboard doesnt have firewire? Buy a new computer! Thats the Mac way...take it in the a$$. Why doesnt anyone point this out? Wait, i just did. But then Mac users are used to paying through the nose every 2-3 years for forced upgrades."

You seem to have forgotten that Windows machines are worth sod all after 3 years, whereas Macs go for a pretty penny on ebay. When my iMac reaches aged 3 it just goes on ebay and bingo - I have 70% of the cost of the latest model.

Upgrading machines is fun, but I'm now happy to settle for the easy life and get a shiny new Mac every 3 years.

That Vista requires more horsepower than the previous OS is EXACTLY what the hardware resellers want, and as that's always been Microsoft's biggest customer base, they get what they want. But that was all based on a time where most end users knew little about computers, were likely as not buying their first one, and would just accept it for whatever it was. Now however, most of those users have grown up and know kludged bloatware when they see it.

But take heart, the future holds ultra low cost appliance computers available at Target and Walmart, which will put the antiquated business models out to pasture where it comes to selling systems to individual consumers. Vista, if still in existence, will either have to significantly downsize and streamline, or be relegated to server closets where few have to deal with its UI at all.

Having installed Kubuntu with KDE 4 on my old laptop (circa 2003, 512mb RAM) I can't see why anyone would pay through the nose for Vista and it's unreasonable hardware requirements.

Nice to see that M$ still isn't using Silverlight.

Eat your own dog food indeed...

Eye goggles for the Flash ;-)

I would say you are more of a curmudgeon than a luddite.

But soon. Once I finish putting together my new gaming rig I'll be throwing Vista on it. I want DX10. I want Readyboost for my page file. I want to put my hardware through the paces.

As for people griping that they can't run it on 5 year old hardware... I don't keep a freaking car for 5 years, why would I keep a doorstop PC/laptop for that long? 3 years, that's a hardware cycle for me.

No, just the majority. The last guy was Ballmer and he didn't want to have anyone thinking he was throwing his own chair, erm...

On the contrary, I have a lot to lose - flexibility and productivity are the notable things.

"Any box above 2 cores and 2Gb RAM will fly with Vista in comparision to XP."

I'd like to see the figures on that. XP and 2k have always been fine on multicore systems as well. And as for Linux, well let's just say the most parallel and fastest computers on the planet run on linux...

Vistas problem is bloat and unfriendlyness. it's in no way comparable to the XP migration, which shuffled a few things around but otherwise remained a fairly open and useabl system. Vista is not.

I have a work laptop with XP Pro, a home PC with XP home and a home laptop with Vista home premium and they are all fine. Virtually never crash, run acceptably fast depending on what I am trying to do (it is only games that slows them down) and are generally all fine.

Is Vista rubbish? I don't think so.

Is Vista buggy and unstable? Not mine or anyone I know's.

Is Vista worth paying money for to upgrade from XP? Absolutely not.

Is linux a viable alternative? If it was people like Novell, IBM, Governments etc. would only use Windows for evaluation, development, Windows support and specific application reasons.

I have to say I would love for Linux to be viable for business and home, but I am afraid it just isn't yet. Maybe next year.

Yea,

When I bought my Compaq Presario last year, the only reason I didn't downgrade to XP is because I couldn't. The machine has NO XP drivers available. Service Pack 1 STILL will not install. And this is Vista BASIC!!!! Do you know anyone who wants Vista, because I do not. Where I work, the IT department informed us last year that they would NOT support it, so don't buy it on any new PC's. BLAH!!!

I wish people would read up on stuff.

Its User Account Control, just turn it off and no more questions but then again what else would you moan about on the forums eh?

Holy VAXen of our ancestors. The comments. They go on FOREVER.

Paris, becuase for a Reg comments section, there's not enough of her yet.

"@Dick Emery...

By Herby

Posted Thursday 12th June 2008 01:01 GMT

Your Spanish is bad, it is:

Hasta la Vista, Baby!

Or if you had the dubbed Spanish version:

"The world famous phrase "Hasta la Vista, Baby" is translated to "Sayonara, Baby" in the Spanish version of the film." (see IMdB)"

Sorry Mr Pedant. I guess I used to visit a certain well known crack site too often and the misspelling - stuck.

My only thought on those 'few' people who are using Vista and had no problems are those who either had it preinstalled on their new PC/laptop or wiped their hard disk (Or at least installed as a new install rather than an 'upgrade') before installation.

I think you will find in the case of Novell they very publicly moved all of their internal machines to Linux after taking over Suse. IBM are in the process of moving many (but admittedly not all) of their internal machines to Linux. There are many governments and local authorities moving vast numbers of their machines to Linux, Germany, France, Brazil, India China, etc. etc. etc

Wake up and smell the coffee..

my quad-core 5GHz, 40GB RAM monster machine! Well, so what?

In the commercial arena a roll-out of Vista will require an expensive hardware upgrade programme, extensive user re-training, lots of IT over-time (whether installing upgrades or rolling out new machines), the inevitable incompatibilites, idiosyncracies, etc. And for what? New killer apps? UAC? Aero? DX10?

Hands up everyone with a critical business need for DX10. No? What about a strong case? No? A 'nice to have'? Yes, you at the back? No, playing games at lunchtime does not constitute any kind of business need.

Or you can stay with XP at no cost, keep applying the security fixes(which will be available for several years) and get on with business as usual.

And at home, DX10, that's it? Well woo-bloody-hoo!

As one poster said "they should give it away with breakfast cereals" but I still wouldnt use it, even if it was 'free'.

The sooner they chuck it in the bin & produce something useful the better, although I find Windows 2000 & XP work perfectly well apart from the registration hangup with XP.

Well, really, two things of note to respond to here....

""Those of us that use Vista don't seem to have any strange trouble that is typically talked about in articles like this. The naysayers seem to be the ones with journo badges, linux/apple fanbois, and luddites."

Where have you been? Under a damn rock? Sure it works for some people, it'd be ridiculous to think otherwise, but that's not the issue. The problem is the overwhelming number of people that have severe problems. The success of a very limited population of users doesn't support calling Vista a success or even a good program."

One thing you (and a lot of others) seem to forget here.... very seldom do people post if they have a good experience/success with something. That's typically reserved for a bad experience with anything. Therefore, the "overwhelming number of people", which a lot of times comes from a given individual posting on about 15 different sites to try to make a bigger impact, when there are likely many times that number who've had no issues and just haven't posted anything online.

"And of course MS will facilitate "upgrading" Vista machines to XP. Hello!! They get to sell two operating systems for each of those machines."

This is really the interesting one.... because if the person actually cares about the option of using the downgrade rights to go to XP.. they buy Vista Business/Ultimate, where no, Microsoft does not "get to sell two operating systems", because the downgrade rights are a license to XP Pro (x64) as appropriate.

Mine's the one with the hands in the pocket, walking out the door.

... that Vista on new hardware designed for it is stable and capable, but unless your old system REALLY rocked, it is probably better off with XP.

I do not want to enter a flame war. If you like Vista, stick with it. If you don't, use XP (or Linux). It really is horses for courses.

But it would be nice if Microsoft would continue to produce security patches for XP for all of the people who have perfectly capable XP systems that will not take Vista, or who do not want to pay for what is probably an unwanted upgrade.

I would hate to think that people started discarding perfectly serviceable systems because their Bank or some other organisation they deal with decides that as XP is not secure enough when it goes out of support. Think of the damage to the environment due to all the plastic, heavy metals and CRT screens.

They cannot even be used with their Microsoft OS if they are donated to charity, as the Windows EULA does not allow it.

Maybe there is an opening for offering recycled kit with Ubuntu loaded on it at budget prices.

Regardless of the hardware / drivers issue, the real problem, and the real cost is the loss of productivity. None of the businesses I look after can afford to upgrade all of their workstations in one go, and none of them can afford the time it takes to get used to all new menus, etc. Most of them have some form of business critical software that does not run on Vista, and will either cost them more money to upgrade, or is no longer available and they have yet to find a replacement because they do not have the time or resources to research and test a new software properly.

It is a fact that Microsoft are trying to force people to upgrade to new software. This is not only the case with Vista but also Office 2007. Have you tried to find things in the new menus? Systems that technically have nothing wrong are causing massive losses of productivity for no good reason.

If Microsoft want to spend $7B on developing a new OS, that is their choice, but given that they are a near monopoly, they should be forced to continue to sell old versions of OS (and Office, etc) for as long as people want to buy them, and when they decide to stop supporting those old OS's, they should be forced to allow other companies to continue to release updates, for a fee if necessary, just like you used to be able to get for older versions of Red Hat (Progeny, I think they were called).

The reason I hate Vista, and Office 2007, is that they have, for no good reason, removed all of my (and my client's) accumulated knowledge of where to find things. It takes time to find them again. In the change between Outlook 2000 and 2002 (XP), Microsoft changed the number of clicks to get to the email account settings from 2 (Tools > Services) to 3 (Tools > Email Accounts > View or Change), and even then once you click on the right account, it takes another couple to get to the advanced features which were once only a tab away. This is progress?

It's not so much Bloatware as TimeSuckingWare(tm) (some of you may be aware of the dark sucking abilities of light bulbs). It almost seems that there a deliberate attempt to slow users down. Perhaps there should be an inverse software law to match the Moore's hardware law. You know, I doubt my word processing productivity has increased by more than a few percent since I started typing on a Tandy 200 (which I am sure lasted a month on 4 x AA batteries, but that might just be fond nostalgia). Admittedly it looks a lot prettier, and I can now embed pictures, but after almost 200 years of keyboards, Microsoft now think we would be better off without them?

So we can now look forward to only being able to buy an OS that doesn't support a keyboard because they have spent billions on another new OS and have decided that we only want to use touch screens?

I am fed up with software writers and marketing researchers dictating the way they think we should work, regardless of how we have done it in the past, regardless of whether the old method was productive or not. I have a "do not disturb" button on my desk phone. I don't have one on my mobile (although a few menus down I can divert it to my voice mail), and the only way I can do it on my email client is to take it offline. Progress? PROGRESS? I'LL GIVE YOU F'ING PROGRESS.

Hm.. got it on my new laptop, was wondering why my blender test seemed so slow (*after turning off all the wizzy effects that left any open gl program with loads of crap on the screen) .. turns out if my prog is touching the taskbar the framerate is 1/2 ... wtf? Using XP now and all is good.

Windows fanbois flaming other Windows fanbois for not being fanbois of the right flavour of Windows? Seriously, people, it's long, hard look in the mirror time

The copy speed problem was caused by the gigabit network stack being throttled down to make sure audio played without gaps. This isn't really necessary with a efficient OS and good hardware, but MS seemed to think different. This was fixed somewhat in SP1.

Mark Russinovich explains it:

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx

And Robert Love pointed out how Vista's TCP stack sucks compared to Linux:

http://blog.rlove.org/2007/08/those-dang-dpcs-clogging-mmcss.html

Paris because she's napping like Vista

A little obtuse perhaps, but my point was that the value would be in the jewel case and the blank inlay card, for these I could find a use ;)

Vista's TCP/IP stack is better than on XP

Windows update is easer to use than before you don't have to run the dreaded IE

The start bar search is really, really good.

Network is easier to use and set up

It looks much better than telitubby XP (the aero is probably fluff though)

The ram hibernation is well implemented (A compatible Vista PC can totally switch off but the ram is held on to instantly restart the pc)

Windows mail is a step in the right direction (junk filters ect)

The breadcrumb navigation is nice (but why can't I have an up button as well)

I would mention the added security but UAC must have been designed by a brain dead chimpanzee

Its not all bad you know!

Most Windows users (as exemplified here) seem to need Microsoft products.

Anything that is not Microsoft is considered the spawn of Satan and his minions, or is not considered at all.

They need Microsoft, they need Windows and they need Office. It is as simple as that. Anything that is a non-Microsoft product is to be shunned, anything that is not sanctioned by Microsoft is to be villified.

This is the famous Microsoft 'Group Think' that permiates modern IT. These people are so brainwashed, almost Scientology like, that if Linux/OSX/*BSD is mentioned they shut down and shut out.

Microsoft is the Charles Manson of software, what does that make their rabid users?

"Stop sign 'cos currently the detratctors are simply following the Apple media machine."

You mean you presume they are because it works for you, ergo it works for everyone else?

>All the people I know having problems 'with Vista' are amazed to find out that >their problems are actually hardware and/or non-Microsoft related

That is the point. Windows is a very inefficient platform because it requires all these driver updates with every new release. Hardware manufactures just got sick of the forced driver updates this time round and the conclusion is that the Web is a better platform. The software and service are processed on the server and you get it delivered to your browser or other lite/smart software.

This way you can use any device and run Web 2.0 apps.

Windows with it's 40 trillion lines of code, 4 billion bugs, and millions of holes allowing viruses in, is not really an efficient ecosystem and no amount of ram will fix that either.

The other point is that PCs will be much smaller soon and infact your phone will be your PC one day. Who in their right mind is going to buy and install Microsoft Word on a phone.

The Web is the platform and the Windows platform is slowly dying,

Read this:

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/07/11/dx10-is-do-able-on-windows-xp

Then this:

http://www.technospot.net/blogs/download-directx-10-for-windows-xp-from-alky-project/

Then have some good old fashioned fun and get it all going. Works a treat, can play new games, and on a faster OS. No views on the OS's - but where there is a will there is a way. Just start googling!

Asus Eee PC has become a game-changer: a win for Intel and Linux, at Microsoft's expense. And this new ultramobile PC trend is poised to introduce a few million Best Buy shoppers to pleasantly usable Linux computers.

Firefox needed four years to gain 20% of the market against a product Microsoft gives away for free. How long it will take until Microsoft looses 20% of their operating system market to Apple and Linux? (The question is not "if"... the question is "when".)

Think about that.

...because if it wasn't such an offal POS, I wouldn't have bought my shiny new iMac (even if the shop did throw in MS Office for a song; Office:Mac is a completely different animal than Office/Windows...)

First Mac I've had since my late lamented PowerTower 225 died a while back. I've been using and developing for Windows as long as the brand has existed. I have been noticing a funny thing.... nearly everything about MacOS has been improved, but what I remember from the Victorian Age still works or is easily adaptable. I had need to work with a client's Win95 PC last week (note to self: next time, bill 5x); it's amazing how /little/ of what you think you remember a) works the same as it does in Vista or b) is recoverably discoverable when done wrong the first time.

Mine's the one with the 'Friends don't let friends get used by Windows' button on the lapel....

I like Vista :)

It even works well on my not-so-powerful Sony Vaio G-Series.

You just have to know how to use/tweak it.