Why power users will hate Vista
I’ve been testing the final version of Windows Vista in the last couple of days and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it. I’m trying to figure an objective approach to it, but it’s really hard, because I simply don’t like most of the things I see. One of the reasons for this is the fact that Windows Vista doesn’t offer anything new for Windows power users - actually, it’s only taking away from them.
I could make a long list, but basically, all the problems stem from several simple facts:
First, there are no more expanding menus. Instead, you have a system similar to web browsing - one menu at a time is visible, while navigation is done with back/forward buttons. Result? Start - Program Files - Accessories - System Tools takes 4 clicks now. In WinXP, it was one click (and a short wait for menus to expand), and going back was just a small movement of the mouse. Sure, you don’t really have to click the items in the new menu, you can just hover over them and they will expand after a second, but most power users don’t want to wait - they want to do things fast. Moreover, the new menus (especially the Start Menu) offer less information because it’s all crammed in a small space. I can’t see any benefits to this new approach - all I see is drawbacks. Of course, you can turn this off in most places and go back to the good old expanding menus, but it means you’re going to have to do it every time you fix someone’s computer.
Which one do you prefer: the old version, or the crammed up version?
Then there are the task oriented menus. Questions, wizards, and tasks everywhere. When you want something done, you don’t want to ask questions. You want to go to that particular option and do something with it. Yet, in Windows Vista, everything is task-oriented, which may simplify things for some, but only complicates things for advanced users. For example, open display properties. You get several subsections, which you have to click again to get to the actual options. However, the option for changing the font size, is - for no apparent reason - listed as a ‘task’ in the left pane of the window. Why? Why is it a task, and why can’t it be with the other options? Why have two panes in the first place? It’s going to confuse the newbies, and it’s going to annoy the pros.
Also, there’s the placement of the options. It’s even harder to find some of them than before. I swear, most power users would probably be happiest if all options in Windows were just a long list with checkboxes, but Microsoft is doing their best to put the options in a million different places. And when the same application appears in several places, it usually opens up with different options available. The worse thing is, the options are pretty much the same as in Windows XP - it’s just a little harder to find your way around.
Here’s an example. The Resource Monitor is one of the most useful new applications in Vista - it monitors all system activity: CPU load, memory usage, disk access, network usage. You would expect this new tool to be in the Control Panel, right? Nope. OK then, Control panel, then System? No. Control Panel, then Performance information and tools? Surely this has got to be it? No.
Resource Monitor. From here you can also get to Performance Monitor and Reliability monitor, but not if you’ve opened it from Task Manager. I guess we’ll just have to remember that.
So where is it then? Two places. Start, right click on Computer, click manage. Expand System Tools and click Reliability and Performance. The other place is under the performance tab in Task Manager, but if you open it from here it will open in its own window. So, what I’m interested in is: why couldn’t this option be added in the Control Panel? It’s the logical place for it to be. Everyone is going to look there first. The name ‘Control Panel’ implicates that an application which lets you control your resources will be there. But no. For no reason at all, it’s entirely impossible to get to this option from the Control Panel. *update: it is present in the Administrative tools also, but there it’s not called the Resource Monitor, it’s called Reliability and Performance monitor. And in all the three instances I’ve mentioned here, it opens in a different window, with slightly different options on the side. Go figure.
This is a great example of Microsoft’s continuing strategy of obscuring certain important features (remember Disk Management in WinXP, and tell me how many casual users can find it? Yet it’s pretty damn important, don’t you think?), probably with the idea of simplifying things, but achieving the exact opposite effect. Microsoft engineers sure spent a lot of time thinking about the clueless users, but they haven’t added a single option that would cater to the needs of the pros. The options are reduced; menus are removed, important options are obscured. I bet many seasoned WinXP users will probably be struggling just to get things back to work as they used to, and it makes you wonder: what kind of progress is that?
January 25th, 2007 at 10:04 am
“I bet many seasoned WinXP users will probably be struggling just to get things back to work as they used to, and it makes you wonder: what kind of progress is that?”
Stop whining, “power user”. Reading your article, I doubt you could call youself even “advanced”…
January 25th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Power users don’t use expanding menus. WTF? How hunting through hundreds of mini menus that disappear if you mouse wrong is easier than just typing what you want and letting Windows find it for you is beyond me. Shouldn’t a “power user” know what the program is called they want to run? Type a few letters of it and it will appear. Use it often and it will always be there, or just use the new add quicklaunch menu feature and always have it one click away. Oh the horror, everyone run!
January 25th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Honestly, you expect them to make it better, but you don’t want anything to change? How is that supposed to work? If they change stuff, people will complain that something is different and they liked the way it was before; if they keep stuff the same, people complain that nothing has changed. I for one am glad they decided to change stuff, because even if it doesn’t seem like it’s for the better, it is.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:40 am
@everyone: I’d just like everyone to know that this doesn’t come from someone who has a grudge against Windows. I’ve been using Windows all my life. This is not the type of criticism that spells: “I hate it anyway, so I’m going to write against it”. It’s just how I feel after using it for a while.
I’m sure that many users will like the changes. I’ve tried: I’ve installed RC1 as soon as I got it, and now I’m using the final version, Business Edition, for a week. But I simply don’t feel like I’m using an improved product. There are improvements, yes; but not enough, and not where it matters the most.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:44 am
So use the old XP UI. That is still an option in Vista. Everyone hates change but change happens.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
I know where you’re coming from Stan. I’ve missed most of the information on Vista since it came out (been away from the scene for various reasons), and I’m still waiting to see what features it’s going to give pros. The command prompt isn’t half what they said it was originally to be, and I’m not sure what they’ve done to the server infrastructure. I hope that as Charles said, going back to the XP (well, 2k) UI will put all these things back in their place - but as you rightly pointed out that’s just one more thing to do when you’re fixing someone else’s PC.
At the moment, the run menu is my best friend - so as long as there’s .msc for everything I’m quite happy, I s’pose.
January 25th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I disagree. The new start menu is definately an ADVANTAGE to power users. The text search app launcher start menu is a rip off of Quicksilver on OS X or AppRocket and Colibri on XP - which all power users should be using. To me its Vistas best feature, but since I use colibri on XP I havn’t bothered upgrading. I only use XP for VS anyway and use OS X for everything else and I run it in Parallels so Aero doesn’t interest me.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I agree the start menu is a huge boost to the power user. I fly to what I’m trying to get. Plus the fact that the search searches everything, not just programs, and that everything on the computer is indexed, it allows me to find just about anything I need instantly.
Another feature for the power users, hold shift while bringing up a menu on a program and you get another few menu items, one is add to quicklaunch. Also, windows key plus 1-0 launch programs 1-10 on your quicklaunch menu.
Hold shift while bringing up the menu on a folder and you get more features like launch command prompt from here which puts you right in the folder in a command prompt. You can also copy the full folder path. Plus, you can modify you command prompt to always open with administrative privileges so that you can get to work right away without the prompts.
One last thing I like as an admin (although I’m not brave enough to deploy Vista network wide just yet) is the ability to pull up the reliability monitor from other computers. So if a user calls reporting a problem, I can take a peek before leaving my desk and get a heads up on what’s happening on their system. I’d imagine the future server release will tie into this feature on a server level allowing for prompts upon errors on systems getting you to the problems before they are even noticed or reported by users. Anything that lets me stay proactive is a plus.
Let’s give this thing a chance to get out to market and a wide user base before we crucify the program.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
@SuperPowerUser: all valid points, but I ask: why do I have to hold shift to get the extra features? Is the fear that these extra features will confuse the casual user so great they have to be hidden?
Also, bear in mind that I was talking mostly about the GUI and the placement of the options. I know that many new options are there, I just think they’re not organized well.
January 25th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Please stop whining.
Stay with XP if you’re so intent on bashing a new product.
January 26th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
who cares? use slickrun and the arbitrary menus of the OS become superfluous.
http://www.bayden.com/SlickRun/
January 28th, 2007 at 11:10 am
[…] Zudem scheint das systematische Verstecken von Optionen unter den Vista-Programmierern zu einem neuen Volkssport avanciert zu sein. Beispiele? Sollt ihr kriegen. Ich zitiere stellvertretend die Erfahrungen eines Autors bei franticindustries (frei übersetzt): Dann wäre da die Plazierung der Optionen. Es ist sogar noch schwieriger geworden, Einige davon zu finden. Ich glaube dass die meisten Power User am glücklichsten wären, wenn man alle Windows Optionen in einer einzigen, langen Liste mit Checkboxen aufgeführt hätte, aber bei Microsoft tut man offenbar sein Bestes, die Optionen an einer Million verschiedener Orte zu verstecken. Und wenn man ein und dieselbe Anwendung von verschiedenen Orten aus öffnet, so startet sie häufig mit unterschiedlichen zur Auswahl stehenden Optionen. Das Schlimme ist, dass die Optionen weitestgehend mit denen von Windows XP identisch sind - sie sind nur etwas schwieriger zu finden. […]
January 29th, 2007 at 7:29 am
’strategy of obscuring’ features…
Why power users will hate Vista…
February 1st, 2007 at 1:13 pm
People this is a board to describe why power users may not like vista not to good up the operating system. If your going to bud up to MS do it on another board.
Too much clicking, not enough finding. Everything locks up, and IE7 is a joke for security.
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I may not be an “advanced user”, myself, but I was very much disappointed with Vista. Here’s my story:
I purchased a $400 laptop with XP about 5 months back from Compaq (que horror music) and, needless to say, it started to have a lot of problems. The S.M.A.R.T. feature of the HDD started failing, things kept happening one after another… it even shocked me at one point (lol don’t ask). So, being in warranty, Compaq replaced this with another laptop. They gave me a $780 laptop to replace it, which was very cool of them. It has WAY better specs than the defective one, so I was VERY excited about it.
Until I ran the Vista OS it came with…
I get this thing yesterday, and just to RUN Vista on this laptop it takes a consistent 50-70% usage of my physical memory. Meaning I can’t do jack squat with it. Immediately after running Vista for the first time, all these useless programs took over my screen (I know some are from Compaq, but then there were Vista’s “gadgets” and other Vista programs). I went into Add/Remove programs to try to get rid of some of this clutter only to find that it’s not listing a lot of the programs I want to delete (and trust me, I tried a lot of CLICKING to get around it.. all to no avail). I’m not an advanced user, so I may be missing something…
But to me, it seems like Vista has pretty much the same functionality as its predecessors, just different ways of clicking and finding things and a lot of eye candy that will run up your system resources unless you either change the GUI or pay a crapload of money to upgrade your hardware.
I also am a gamer… and that being said, I find it completely ridiculous and pointless to have to upgrade my hardware just to run a game on Vista that ran perfectly fine on XP.
What’s the point of Vista if you have to, at some point, consider changing it back to older versions?
I’m poor, don’t have money to upgrade my laptop memory to 2 gigs as opposed to 1 just to play the games I love, and am switching back to XP so I can feel like this new laptop I received and was so excited about won’t seem so lacking due to Vista’s high requirements.
P.S. I type a lot.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:53 am
I’m an Apple user. I switched from being a long time windows user - since its earliest versions in the 90’s - and it was because of being sick of dealing with MS and windows becoming a piece of crap every couple years that I decided I had better hit the road. I was really wondering whether or not MS might actually do something with VISTA to convince me to consider switching back, and now more than ever I’m glad I made the switch.
Have you gone onto Amazon.com and read the comments by people on the product? It is pretty rediculous. I don’t think MS has done much but bring on themselves a lot of wrath that will probably - from the work of MS in producing once again a terribly crappy product that was many months late and relatively useless - enlarge Apple’s market share even more. After all, it is because of people being sick of MS nonsense that has been aiding Apple’s market share growth in recent years. Vista seems to be MS’ effort at increasing the market share of Apple, and I think Apple might want to send Bill Gates a big fat thank you card for selling the Apple OS so well.
And with programs like “parallels”, that enables you to run WIN and MAC OS’ simultaneously (yes, even VISTA) on a Mac, and the superiority of MAC products in general, I’ll extend to all of you a general greeting from the other side of the aisle that doesn’t like Windows in the first place. You are all welcome to make the switch, if Vista inspires you to do so…
I invite you to all run a comparison with the current Mac OS X as well as the next one that is expected to be released shortly, and consider whether or not you are going to continue wasting time and energy on the useless guerilla known as Microsoft.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:10 am
Agree with you, i´m forced to use vista business at work, i freakin hate it!
The options are completely hidden, you have to go trough 500 places to find something. My temporary solution, is to make all the shortuts I can on the desktop, but does not always work.
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:07 am
@Applefan
mac os x has the exact same “overwhelming” problems as vista.
March 4th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Oh please the windows fanboys are out here. Critical comments of an OS costing in the UK upwards of $700 for the ultimate versions are unreasonable?
Vista is a dog. Change for changes sake is of no benefit to anyone.
Hardly any of the changes can be justified other than for product differentiation.
Microsoft’s Vista is full of interface changes and burying advanced options purely to dumb down the experience.
Examples include…
1. Add/Remove programs being changed to the more ambiguos Programs and Features. Why is the internet full of forums demanding this change? No. In fact there’s no rational reason for the change.
2. Burying the network stack several layers down. Why?
3. Display properties no longer available from the desktop.
4. UAC. Oh dear Microsoft still doesn’t get it? There is a huge difference between approval and authentication. Pop up too many messages and users will rapidly disregard the warnings (or even worse turn them off).
5. Was there anything wrong with the File menu?
I could go on (and on)… Sure you can reconfigure many of these annoyances but surely that’s a pretty damning statement of Vista? Ultimately it takes you more clicks to get to where you want to go.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not anti-Microsoft and they do produce some pretty decent applications but Vista as a development process has been a huge failure. This isn’t what Longhorn was supposed to be. Half of the last five years has been spent developing technology that they simply not been able to integrate into Vista (WinFS or Palladium anyone).
They’ve ended up attaching a flash and bloated new interface to the Windows 2003 code base and trumpeting as a revolution. It’s more secure but as anyone who has spent any time over the last three years will you Windows 2003 is far from secure.
A really poor and cynical effort from Bill and Steve.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I Hate Vista!!!! All of it!!!! All 571 Freaking new features. I’m going back to xp and Im going to use Vista for target practice tomorrow
March 10th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I am the IT manager for a local government and I purchased a new computer with Vista Business and gave it a try with the software that is used at our facility.
Aside from the nice graphics, there are many problems that plague this release.
For starters, I installed the Foxpro runtimes that are needed on the workstation. The security dialogs starting popping up warning about untrusted software and/or untrusted publisher. (Great it doesn’t even know about a product from the same company.) It installed without any error messages. There are 7 different Foxpro modules that we use for day-to-day operations and they are made by a third-party company. Only three of the seven opened up without errors and the ones that did, generated multiple errors. These are errors I never seen before and I finally had to end task to get out of them. The third party company probably will have to get its whole user base to upgrade Foxpro and make many changes in its code. This would be a good hit on taxpayers money. Someone would think that they would test to see if their programs would operate better in the business evironment before releasing this.
I installed Office 2003 with no errors but when it asked if I wanted check for service packs and updates. I agreed and it finally ran me to a web page stating that updates for Office 2003 were not supported yet. Sure there may be more security in this operating system but without the service packs and multiple security paches, who knows where that leaves the security of the system. I have heard that Vista also has major problems with Visual Basic, Visual C, MSSQL, and more. Arcview GIS does not install properly as well.
Later while navigating around, it pops up and states that it installed a few security updates. Right when this machine came online, I installed it into a domain with Group Policy set to not allow installation of patches and such until approved by IT. The machine showed up in the WSUS server but never listed what it needed for updates. I guess the machine just ignored the group policy and decided to install the patches without approval. So much for IT having control over this operating system, which seems to have mind of its own and disobeys group policies.
While trying to clean up all the useless icons such as “Sign up with this [ISP]” and “Subscribe to this and that”, I decided to uninstall a lot of windows components that are not needed and against local governement policy. There is no way to uninstall the Chat, MSN, Movie Maker, and a lot others. The workers are secretaries, not movie creators/directors. Why don’t they allow to remove Movie Maker on the business edition? Do they think we all work in Hollywood?
I believe this product is nowhere near commercial quality. I am finally just getting the last of the machines off Windows 2000 over to XP. XP has gotten much better and I was hoping for Service Pack 3 but I guess that is just a dream now as I imagine all the programmers have their hands full with their new behemoth.
The time I spent trying to figure out where everything is made me realize that the only way for the employees to learn the new system is to wait until they buy it for their home computers and let them fumble through it there. Considering all the hardware upgrades, employee downtime, operating system issues, and major amounts of money to upgrade this, I come to the conclusion that this operating system is not going to be installed for at least 1.5-2 years in the future. There may even be some room for Linux machines.
For a lot of people it comes down to the fact that Microsoft is making a big mistake by making computer companies sell their computers with Vista only instead of giving them the XP option as well.
March 13th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
I have been on Vista for about a month now, and I absolutely hate it. UI aside, Yes, it is pretty. Yes its shiny and new. And a pain in the arse. I was shocked when upon creating a new folder and naming it, I was prompted four times if this was correct. Nothing like slowing progress to a halt. I am constantly editing permissions, ownership, etc, and still am unable to access areas on my computer, (such as “Send To”). Security is so extreme, that if I were to create a user account for my nine year old daughter, I would have to make it an admin account just to allow her to play her games. When programs do run, it can take a few minutes before the consent window appears, before you are allowed to continue. Half of the time I spend at my pc, I expect to hear (from 2010) “Dave, I am afraid I cant let you do that Dave”. I feel compassion for anyone who has to tech support, or work on a Vista machine.
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Why can’t Microsoft just let us choose our own OS on OUR pc. Why do we have to buy a new computer with an operating system we don’t want. I know this is marketing on microsofts behalf but we are a customer and should have a choice…..
It is a pain in the butt to change the operating system after Vista is pre-installed. When do we get a choice Mr. GATES…
Chuck
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:13 am
wow you guys are soooooo hung up about what stan said calm the F*** down and the fact that he is voicing his opinion is what this website was inteded for… soooo if you dont like what he’s writing about… um them dont comment or read something else fools.
VISTA DOES ABSOL. SUCK!
March 29th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Can anyone give me directions on how to change back to XP? I just can not put up with the crazy features of Vista.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Well just bought a new printer. It’s Vista compatible, but removing the drivers, ports etc. for the old printer can not be done resulting in my new printer not working. Hopefully Steve Balmer isn’t here or else he would be danglin’ from my window on the 2nd floor until he would promise to help me (figure of speech). It sucks so big time. Yeah the bling bling is Wow but the rest is crap.
I can’t keep thinking that Vista is for XP what Me was for 98. It’s totally C R A P.
April 9th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I cannot agree with the author more. I’m a always a huge Microsoft fan, loved their simplicity. But for the first since the final release of Vista I thought of switching to Ubuntu or any linux, or even Mac! Here’s why.
To shutdown on XP, I simply press Start, U, and U. Now I freaking cant. I have to use my mouse to click 3 times, and choose from 9 options! (2 after pressing Start, and 7 after that right-arrow) Not simplified, but more confusing. The design of Vista in other areas are also just a disaster.
Start Menu on Vista - it doesnt display all my programs. Having at least 50 programs installed, I cant remember half the names, I just know their functions. On XP, after cursoring on Program, the whole sorted list of programs appear in front of me to choose from. That’s power use, having everything in one screen for u to choose. Now I have to roll down and look one by one closely in case I over-rolled. Ok u screwed up the design, at least give us the option to use the XP style. They didnt! MS begin to disgust me with Vista and Windows “Defence” and User Account, on and on.
I can go on and on about how complicated it is to find the Properties of Networks Device, confusing System Properties and other design flaws that failed to categorize subjects in logical manner.
I tested the very first few alpha versions in August 2005 (was so excited), and since I have tested almost every beta, and the final is a total disappointment. I have dual boot for XP and Vista, and almost never use Vista. Dont tell me I hate change, I embraced fully the jump from 98 to Me to XP. But Vista is 2 steps backward. I anticipated WINFS, cool Preview panel, simplified and automated procedures for common functions. Nope. Aero and Media Centre doesnt replace its useability, at least in the eyes of those more “advanced” and impatient users. I’ll wait till Powertoy release to start using it.
xx
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:45 am
I agree with the author as well. I like most microsoft products up until now. I now use only ubuntu and xp. Vista is a waste of time, expecially for a power user such as myself. It just keeps on crashing and is such a resource hog. And not to mention hardly any of my software is compatible!
Read other peoples opinions and submit yours at http://www.ihatevista.co.uk/forum
May 11th, 2007 at 6:11 am
I agree also with the author. Microsoft is too much oriented towards ‘new’ features, but it lacks the most important ones; security and stabillity. Vista is far from being bug free and it is far from being user friendly.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:30 am
how about windows mail….slow slow slow…because it can not handle too many addresses…joke product, hopefully GM is the future for MS………..
November 16th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I hate Vista. The article is right on. The best response that I saw was the one that said i could change back to XP view. Now I am struggling with Vista to try and find how to do just that.
December 7th, 2007 at 3:22 am
Don’t waste your time with Windows Vista. They came on my laptop preinstalled, I decided not to remove them because I was in a hurry to finish a project but after 3 days I decided formatting Vista was the only option.
My productivity was seriously hampered by the “wow”, the performance was as if I bought a laptop half the price and they were even incompatible with my router, causing connection problems.
I don’t just hate Vista, but I also hate its fans, because their only argument is that Vista will soon be “the only choice”.
Screw this, if MS kills XP I’ll just switch to the Google OS and will ~never~ install Vista.
December 10th, 2007 at 7:51 am
I have been trying to work it out with the preinstalled Vista that came with my notebook… i just have to say that it’s simply more complicated that what MS promised it to be. Security is exaggerrated, my mouse doesnt work, i cant install my games… i’ll keep vista around… in a different partition, and install XP pro.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Just returned a big, beautfil multi-media pc to Costco’s because after trying it for a month, I absolutely HATE Vista. I ordered a Dell with XP installed instead. Can’t wait till it gets here. I have been using Windows since Windows 3.1 in the early 90’s and Vista is the worst ever. For the first time in my life I wandered over to the Apple section and almost made the switch.
February 15th, 2008 at 1:59 am
I cannot understand why everything in Vista hurts so much,
after system admining on Sun, SCO, Linux, then Windows from Win95 up to present I have never had so many problems with any other OS, stock standard web surfing and running word etc its fine, try and doing anything complex and it falls down like the steaming pile of &@#$ it is,
Visual Studio barely works on vista,
forget about anything non microsoft. Java,php,apache, mysql, just try and get some of them working. Good luck with any of express versions of Microsoft products, mssql express on vista is like pissing razor blades.
Try and get IIS7 to work with anything is a nightmare and you spend all your days googling to find some obscure reason why you are getting 500 errors.
Vista i hate you
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:07 am
I am fed up with Vista. All you criticizing this article for not being a “true power user” are missing the point. A computer is a tool and the operating system should reflect that. If I were a carpenter and every time I picked up a hammer it zapped me and asked for an authorization code (and turning off this option would allow for my hammer to be stolen or become rusted) it would take forever to build anything.
Microsoft was obviously trying to change things up to compete with the last few releases of the Mac OS. Theirs is comfortable for seasoned windows users to catch on to but Microsoft missed the target with Vista. Its isn’t easy for anyone to use it unless it’s segnificantly stripped down… in which case it operates essentially like XP but with the typical Vista driver and compatibility problems.
I am a long time windows fan and supporter but I’ve had better luck setting up and running Ubuntu Linux (Gutsy) than I had with Vista.
My biggest beef with Vista: compatibility problems that go back and forth between Vista Support blaming faulty hardware and the hardware support blaming Vista problems, both telling me to contact the other to resolve!
February 27th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Windows officially went crapple on us. Sad to see. They must have developed a complex from all those stupid Apple commercials
February 27th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Wow here you guys are. I have been puzzled by the lack of negative response to Windows Vista in the press. I think MS and it’s fanboys really don’t want the bad press out there. BadVista.org seemed like an okay site at first, but I have seen few updates since then. Perhaps I just like to bitch. I think M$ Vista adoption has been strong in the US, but not as strong elsewhere in the world.
I have to concur with the majority here, this OS is really not for me. It really is just another Windows Millennium, I assume (and hope) the next OS will not have so much trouble.
After the struggle and headaches I had with Server 2003 and Active Directory, I just dread another unpredictable, unreliable, unmanageable beast in my office that takes weeks to understand and tame. I think this OS is geared less for business professionals and more for the people who surf Facebook and watch movies.
Older versions of QuickBooks and Simply Accounting just don’t work, their solution was to just upgrade to the 2007 or newer version. At our business we use a strange Oracle-based Java database application that the Oracle has NO intention of EVER providing Windows Vista support for. I’ve heard other horror stories. I still can’t share a folder on my network from Vista to XP; simply not sure why not.
I click on Control Panel, I get ‘It seems your Control Panel is opening for some reason, do you wish to allow this?’. Well I just clicked on the bloody thing now didn’t I? Deferring security questions to the end user is not a security improvement, it’s just a way to insulate them from liability. ‘Well, you must have clicked it open so ultimately you were the one responsible for that security decision’. My users won’t know, they will just click wildly. Havoc will ensue.
I just don’t think this OS is for the business crowd at all, just too many incompatibilities with hardware and software. If I didn’t need to run ‘business productivity’ software I would switch everybody over to Linux. I still have plenty of users on crappy old computers, in fact, even the computers that were new last year are nowhere good enough to run Vista.
I think that this proprietary style of software is quickly going to become overrun by the Open Source movement. I’ve heard a rumor that Ballmer said that after their next OS they are going to reconsider if making OS’es is really a money making venture for them to pursue. It wouldn’t surprise me if the answer, by then, will be no.
On a somewhat related note I don’t like Office 2007 either. I don’t like ‘OpenXML’, and I don’t like them using the word ‘Open’ when talking about a proprietary format. I just got everybody on Office 2003 and now they introduce incompatibilities? I was quite honestly stunned the other day when working in Excel 2007 and I tried to sort a table by date. Was quite literally dumbfounded when November 2 came before January 3 but after February 1st! With proprietary junk junk like this there’s nothing I can do but hope for a patch someday. When there is a free Open Source product available that works, and does literally the same thing, WHY WOULD I PAY REAL MONEY FOR JUNK LIKE THIS?
I don’t want to beta-test for M$ any more!!! Long live the Open Source!
I’m running Ubuntu, and plan to run a virtual Windows XP for any of those fussy tasks I can’t do simply on my Linux box yet. Aero-style Windows is okay, but no thanks, I can do something equally impressive on Ubuntu with Compiz Desktop Cube. For free. With my exiting hardware.
Frustrated Canadian Tech
March 8th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
MS has done an incredibly stupid thing my alienating the base of power users. *Adding* new ways to organize for newbie types is one thing, *removing* the things power users have spent 10 years learning is insane. I use XP without thinking where things are - I focus on the job, not the tool. Vista forces me to think about how to regain the simple functionality that has been taken away. I don’t memorize, I recognize. When all the icons look completely different - I have to relearn them. There is a principle that no software house should forget - THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST SURPRISE. Vista’s interface is like being dropped behind enemy lines without even a Swiss army knife. MS needs to put the functionality back, and leave the familiar icons alone.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I’ve used Vista Ultimate on the main PC on my network for almost a year now, and I’ve gotten around most compatibility issues with the programs i use most. However, every day I get more and more irritated with its restrictions and its muck heap of annoying obstacles(networking, file management, everything, etc). I curse Microsoft for making me pay for such a stupid and inefficient system, and for wasting my time. When I find the time to make the effort replacing it with XP again, I will. I wonder what they were thinking when they came up with this system, it is better suited in a #&¤#! game console.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Vista has been a disaster and in fact it makes me angry enough that I would love to sue Microsoft. I see that instead of fixing Vista or abandoning it, Microsoft is planning to spend $300 million in public relations to try to warp people’s minds in to thinking the crap is usable.
My horror story can’t be unique.
I bought my wife a laptop and unfortunately it had Vista on it. I simply could not find anything with XP and she’s not able to use Linux. It was a disaster. She hates it, I hate it, our two cats hate it. It looks like crap, trying to find files id twice the effort of the same search process in XP, it looks like crap, it’s slower than XP ever was, it looks like crap, and trying to disable some of the crap that comes with it is extremly difficult. Oh, and it looks like crap.
Microsoft should recall Vista, issue an updated XP for free to those of us who bought the Vista pile of shit.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
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