Vista - Vista highlights and lowlights after six months of use

Okay, I don’t want to be any of the following:

* A Windiot
* A Wintard
* A Wintroll
* A Microsoft fanboy/fanboi
* A Microsoft apologist
* A Microsoft shill
* Etc., etc., you get the idea...

So, I will objectively provide a brief list of the positive AND
negative things that I’ve experienced with Vista (Ultimate, 32-bit)
after using it for six months on a PC I built myself...

--- POSITIVE ---

* Beautiful and functional user interface.

* Speed/responsiveness is quite good (okay, I admit, I’m running it
with a dual-core CPU and 2 GB of RAM).

* Software compatibility (the majority of my programs have worked).

* Hardware compatibility (the majority of my devices have worked).

* Stability; feels more secure than previous versions of Windows (I
think it actually is, but this is a subject of debate, I know).

* Built-in applications are nice.

* Robust and powerful; well organized w/ integrated search.

* Media Center is just great! I love watching movies with it.

--- NEGATIVE ---

* At first, a few crashes and blue screens while trying to sort out my
driver issues.

* Some bugs I’ve noticed here and there: in Calendar while working with
tasks, the Sidebar (it got totally corrupted once), and the Games
Explorer (all the icons keep getting messed up).

* Sure, I did run into a couple of software/hardware incompatibilities
here and there.

* Early on, I had to reinstall the entire OS just because I told my
BIOS to natively recognize my SATA hard drive. Windows didn’t like
that and decided to crash because of it. Dang it!

* Spontaneous reboots on at least two occasions (but then again, I’ve
been experiencing power supply issues, so it might not be Vista’s
fault).

* User Account Control is only mildly annoying in my opinion.

* The silliness of having so many different versions to choose from
(but then again, Microsoft clearly explains what your options are on
their website, and it wasn’t THAT difficult for me to make a decision).

* That’s about all I have for the negatives, but I am also aware of the
fact that some people are complaining about Vista’s somewhat high price
and hefty system requirements, so I might as well mention that.
Although, I’ve read about some rare cases where Aero has been
performing decently even under integrated graphics.

All in all, I’m generally satisfied and happy with how things have been
going. But I’ll be the first to admit: Windows ain’t perfect, and the
alternatives (OS X, Linux) will always keep Microsoft worried (not to
the point where they’ll suffer psychosomatic symptoms, but I’m sure
it’ll always be on their minds).

I guess you wouldn't get too many responses if you claimed to
just adore UAC, but G-d knows, I've been wrong before.

"Erich Kohl" <synth.virtuoso@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5CJ6j.69529$RX.54509@xxxxxx

No much to say except that my experience is the same.

Many of the issues you describe are common to a new release of an OS. With Vista, these have been mostly ironed out, and the system run smoothly.

With the exception of Sidebar that still lags the logon a little, most of my peeves about Vista have been resovled through updates from Windows Update and device drivers from hardware manufacturers.

Although SP1 (due in the first quarter of 2008) is a cumulative rollup of the past years updates, it will introduce a few minor changes too.


UAC is still with us, but it's going to be less annoying in some cases. Although I must admit, that I've been using Vista for almost a year now, and UAc is only really annoying when I install something. I get perhaps 1 or 2 UAC prompts a week.

You may want to read the changelog for the Vista SP1 Release Candidate:

Microsoft publishes detailed Vista SP1 “changelog”

Yes, Windows has bugs. But so do Mac a Linux.

One of Mac Leopards "greatest" new features (amoungst others), the "Time Machine" backup utility, had some serious bugs that caused to to restore data to locations other than where it originally came from.

Read This: Macworld: News: Apple updates Mac OS X Leopard

Odd really, how Mac fans have been deadly quiet about Windows "flakiness" after Leopard was released...

UAC is perhaps mildy annoying, but it's one of those features of Vista that that you'll turn off and then some malware or sometinhg will creep onto your system and you'll find yourself wishing you left UAC turned on!

UAC is only annoying when you first setup your computer, installing applications and drivers. I hardly get any UAC prompts anymore. Maybe 1 or 2 a week, but thats it.

In a nutshell: UAC is on Top 10 Favourite features of Windows Vista.

Whats also funny is the exact same FUD campaign started from the Lin-Trolls,
in the Mac forums, when Leopard came out. I think they just sit around
waiting for ANY new version of Windows or Mac OS to come out, and see it as
a chance to push Linux.

I actually felt a kinship to my Mac cousins, for the first time in many
years, when the Lintrolls attacked them.

Kurt

"dzomlija" <dzomlija.31bb61@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:dzomlija.31bb61@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...

Kurt Herman wrote:What you describe is common. People want to be OK.

One way to accomplish that is to pull down those that are more OK than they.
Some can't rest until they discover a flaw in another person, political
party, or operating system. By finding a problem in the other, they are
(relatively) better off.

I think the syndrome comes from eating too many carrots as a child.

The only thing that you'll get from eating too many carrots as a child is good eyesight.

But perhaps what you should have said is that some can't rest until they inflate their own egos by manufacturing a non-existant flaw in someone or something. These people have been living in a dream world for so long, that they believe in their own fantasies, and think that by pulling others down, they can be seen as heroes.

"Erich Kohl" <synth.virtuoso@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5CJ6j.69529$RX.54509@xxxxxx
My experience with Vista has largely been positive also. But I think you
missed one huge negative in my book; file copying is majorly screwed up.

Lang

In article <O1o11t4OIHA.5400@xxxxxx>,
"Lang Murphy" <lang_murphy@xxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Lang,

Would you mind explaining briefly a bit about file copying?

Thanks,

Mark-

Mark Conrad wrote:
It's funny, I've heard the same thing, but I can't say I've experienced
any problems in that area.

Unless we are talking about file copying as it pertains to doing it
over a network -- I think I've read of at least one case like that.