Vista Sucks

This is about the best way to describe my experience with Vista: it simply sucks!

I downloaded my copy as soon as Vista was posted on MSDN. Tried to upgrade my XP (twice!) with no success. After an hour and a half or so, Vista would bluescreen (!) with some IRQ exception and refuse to start up. Granted, I wasn’t nervous because Vista creates a backup of your OS in case the installation fails.

After two unsuccessful installs and rollbacks, I gave up on the upgrade path and installed Vista on a separate hard drive. I can live with a dual boot. In retrospect, I’m glad my XP didn’t upgrade.

Apps that never ran

All along, using Vista was a bumpy ride. Some applications simply don’t start. They just… quietly… go away. My guess is they don’t check if they have enough permissions, and, since you’re not an admin anymore, Vista kills them. Very few applications at least crash with a permission exception which gives you a clue to run them as an admin. Looks like software vendors have some catching up to do.

Firefox

Speaking of which… Firefox in Vista is hosed. Is simply does not remember any settings. You turn off toolbars—they come back. You try to bookmark a page—it won’t bookmark. You download a file—you can’t run it because it’s not signed by a trusted publisher. Again, my guess it’s a goof-up on Mozilla’s end. Some “well-known” system paths have changed, and Firefox, obviously, has a few things hardcoded. So for all intents and purposes, Firefox is not usable in Vista yet. Oh, if your bookmark toolbar is empty and you try to hide it, behold a funky “animation”.

Developer tools

Just about the only reason I installed Vista was to get a feel for its UI and try out the new IIS. However, VS 2003 won’t run in Vista, and Visual Studio 2005 comes with plenty of disclaimers. And never mind SQL Server. What’s up with this?

“All Programs” menu

This is, perhaps, the thing I hate the most: the claustrophobic menu where Vista tries to cram all shortcuts to installed applications. In XP, every subfolder expands to the right, so you’ve got plenty of screen real estate. In Vista, it’s all there, in a tree form, inside of a small box. Downright horrible!

Freeze-ups

I couldn’t even suspect I’d have so much use my the Reset button. If I put Vista to sleep, things go very wrong once I wake it up. IE 7 freezes everything so bad, that you can’t even bring up the Window Task Manager (CTRL-Shift-Escape does not respond). I don’t know if the networking drivers crap themselves over, and I don’t really care. My Reset button is now shiny!

The lethal shutdown

The day before yesterday, I pressed the Shutdown button expecting a prompt (something you can configure in XP). Vista neatly closed the few applications that were running, logged me out and shut down, nice and easy.

Imagine my surprise when I booted it up tonight only to see a Windows 2000-style “flat” user interface with everything I installed missing, no glass, nothing. Somehow I got downgraded to a non-privileged user, unable to even see anything in the Control Panel. To add insult to injury, every “zone” in IE 7 became locked. I was locked out and not given any options to do anything about it.

This is where I said enough. Big thanks to the author(s) of VistaBootPRO who made it very easy to get rid of Vista from the dual boot.

There’s more…

There’s plenty more, but you get the overall idea—wait for a service pack.

Help with the launch? No, thanks

As a diligent Microsoft MVP, I wanted to volunteer to help the mother empire with the Vista launch. I would go to a local BestBuy or CompUSA and help Microsoft promote the new OS. But after this experience, you won’t drag me there even with a free Zune. I just can’t offer people to buy such crap. I’m sorry for people who will buy and install it. Hey, at least I’m being honest about it!

I'm not having the same experience. i'm running Vista x64 from a clean install, Firefox works fine i can bookmark, remove toolbars etc i do get the animation if i remove all bookmarks but that is a trivial bug, i can download files and run them, I actually like the new programs menu i find myself just typing a few letters of the program name and hitting enter. Sure i have some issues but all are caused by 3rd party apps written for XP, to be expected i think.

I have to agree with Daren. I'm running Vista x86 on my trusty T42p. Now, I don't use Firefox, so I can't comment on that, but the rest. Beside the disclaimers for VS 2005 and SQL I really like Vista.

Why expand menus at all, just hit the start button and type the first letters of your app and hit enter, unless you've installed tons of 3rd party tools with similar names that is, then you have to with for the search result to appear.

It doesn't matter if _some_ people have no trouble with Vista ... it is supposed to be a commercial grade OS. Until _most_ people have no trouble, Vista is not worth the plastic it is pressed on.

My experience has been the opposite I love Vista. Yes if you are an early adopter you will have to wait for vendors to catch up. But, if MS left any security holes your post would be about Vista security.

Maybe they should of waited a little longer before releasing, but would have pissed off Shareholders.

I too have very few complaints. Most of the problems you're describing sound like driver/software issues, which Microsoft can't be blamed for. I'm still waiting for final ATI/Creative drivers on my machine... but the betas (at least for ATI) seem to be holding up nicely.

I'm using VS2005 and SQL2005 without any problems, using the latest service packs and beta Vista service pack.

Firefox works perfectly. Not sure if you installed it to a non-default folder or something? Or have your user account set up wrong? But it just plain worked for me out of the box. Did you leave UAC turned on or off? I've left it on (default) and haven't had troubles.

Milan, sorry to hear you've had so much trouble. Of course the first suggestion to folks is "clean install." I understand this is daunting for folks but Vista clean install is much much improved.

My first hunch on the sleep/freeze problem is a problem with your BIOS. Check your manufacturer's website for updates.

Certainly you registered and validated your copy of Vista, right? Your lockout problem sounds very much like Windows Genuine Advantage [Reduced Functionality Mode.](http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=148)

Still, I agree that Vista is not a no-brainer upgrade, yet. It requires careful evaluation for each individual. And perhaps some bug fixes. :-)

My experience with Vista is horrible. I installed it on very decent hardware (new HP notebook with 2GB RAM..) yet this thing is slower than a turtle on Vicodin. I agree that the menu is absolutely claustrophobic. I normally more-or-less like MS products, but I will not be using Vista even if Microsoft gives me free notebook combined with use of private jet. Many applications do not work and the OS freezes randomly. No BIOS settings helps. And I did a clean install. Sucks sucks sucks big time. Even basic things that worked correctly in XP seem to be broken in Vista, e.g. wireless networking disconnects randomly.

Plus, I forgot to add, my notebook battery drains in under 2 hours in Vista, while in XP it lasts over 4 hours. I guess the name 'Vista' is appropriate - you are left without battery power so quickly you can just stare out of airplane window and enjoy the views instead of actually working.

Wow, I just read your piece and I have to admit I am having the opposite experience with Vista. While I do find the fact that VS 2003 does not work properly, I can easily solve that with a virtual machine. Firefox is my main browser and works perfectly. I have not had one problem with it yet. I have been running Vista since it was released on MSDN. I did not do an upgrade (because quite frankly I do not trust upgrading an OS), choosing instead to do a full install of Vista Ultimate. One thing I did do and recommend to all that are going to migrate to Vista is run the Vista Upgrade Adviser. This one move saved me loads of time diagnosing compatibility problems.

I installed the RTM version of Vista Home Premium on my new HP dv9000 laptop. Installed fast, looks pretty, seems as snappy or snappier as XP SP2. I like it better for a laptop OS as I can get to all the power settings in one place. The start menu took awhile to get used to but you can also set it back to XP-style though I use Windows Key + Search to find all my apps these days.

VS 2005 + SP1 is working great, minus the usual cavets.

Firefox installed and works fine.

There are some UI things I'm adjusting to, I'm not big on the folders being sideways and while I like the new control panel I can't always tell where I need to drill into to find things.

I do *HATE* the multiple versions. I struggled with IIS7 forever before finding out that the Home Premium version doesn't allow Windows Authentication on IIS7. It also doesn't allow Remote Desktop.

Overall I like a lot about Vista, the visuals are slick, I like the full preview of items in the taskbar more than I thought I would, the photo gallery is very nice, tagging support is built into a lot of the apps and Windows Update is finally truely built into the system. I really like the network view that gives you a network map.

Sorry your experience was so bad, mines been great so far.

Vista is a hog, it runs ok on my duel core but is sluggish on IBM T43. I can also confirm that it drains my laptop battery much more quickly (lost 45 minutes from a full charge).

Lets get real here. WHY does any want to upgrade to this? I mean serious, what do you get? Considering MS track records and how 2003 was suppose to be the most secure OS in the world. I don't see how this is going to be THAT much better.

I'll stick with XP and 2003 for now.

Mmmh, so far I have no problems with Vista (in opposite to older Windows versions). Everything works great.
But I also realized that the battery of my T43p drains much more quickly. So maybe I will only use it on my desktop pc and delete it from my notebook.

Well i guess we need to wait for a little more time for a stable version :)

I couldn't disagree more. So far, after figuring out a few minor things that are different from XP, I've had no problems, for the most part, and things have worked very good. There's an annoying bug when it comes to thumbnails and certain mpeg's, but other than that, I'm enjoying Vista very much. It is a step in the right direction and I can't wait for the DirectX 10 games. My only future concern is DRM, although I never use any bought media that might contain DRM on my computer (which is a good thing given the Sony rootkit issue), I always use stand-alone players, so I may never experience those DRM issues.

Vista is the biggest joke MS has ever unleashed. I have many facts to back this up, but I will only tell you about one. Vista still uses NTFS. Regular old NTFS! The only difference between XP and Vista NTFS is symbolic links. BIG DEAL! UFS has had symbolic links for decades! Microsoft completely ignored 20+ years of file system research when picking a file system for vista. Instead they picked a file system that remains relatively unchanged since 1993.

Vista is supposed to be a "commercial" grade OS, but that is a joke. Once again MS has made a OS that is barley fit for home use. In fact they have made it harder for home users with all the fancy security features that will be broken shortly.

Listen, don't be afraid of change! Save your old computer and put Linux on it, or buy a Mac!!! Both OS's undergo constant change and improvement, not just when their creators find a problem! The old stereo type of software only running on Windows is gone, anyone who wants to remain in business has ports to at least OSX. Internet Explorers position as the standard web browser is dying too, Mozilla Firefox out numbers hits on my web site almost 2 to 1.

Microsoft should wake up and smell the coffee, or they are in trouble.

everytime I think it's ok, something else is all screwed up. Seriously, vista is a royal pain. Changing well known paths? what were they thinking... And yes, my network disconnects randomly... DNS doesn't work more often than it does, My host sits in Local Only network mode until I go into a command prompt and ping something. Only then, does it drop into internet mode. I can hit reload all day long till the cows come home in firefox OR IE7 and it still won't go anywhere without a ping. Visual studio finally works, but yells at me like I'm riding a motorcycle without a helmet for running it... That's one of the FLAGSHIP products... they should have waited. these are individually minor issues, but as a whole it's a terrible experience

I have to say I tried installing it 2x now, not even going to bother, get most of the problems the first persn is talking about. Blue screen then computer can't start up....not worth the effort anymore, I just couldn't be bothered.

I installed Vista while it was in Beta 2. After that, I upgraded to RC1 and currently I have RC2 CPP version of Vista Ultimate... I had some problems with VWD Express - unable to run site with development server. Besides that, it is working fine, considering my low-level hardware (Radeon 9250/128MB, 512MB RAM and small 10GB dedicated partition)... Office 2007, Gimp and Expression Web B2TR also worked fine on it, but slower than on WinXP (And some testing NetFx3 apps :) )
Problems you encountered with Firefox I had on XP x64, same behaviour, but I didn't resolved that...
Did you tried to install Vista on Virtual Machine using VMWare?

VistaBootPRO is a copy of EasyBCD, which is the real deal. EasyBCD has a hundred more features and wasn't written from stolen code. If you liked VistaBootPRO you really should check out EasyBCD, it gives you features like automated MBR backup, Linux & OS X support, and comes with NeoGrub too.

PROnetworks should be ashamed of theirselves for copying such an excellent (and free) program!

My experience has also been horrible. My target box is 3 months old and after I crawl through the carnage of driver hell I get slapped around by Vista Advisor that VS2005 and SQL2005 "Probably" won't work right. So I figure I'll deal with it and proceed to install. Right! 3 hours later into setup I get blue screen of death and then roll back into XP with no report or explanation other than visit microsoft.com for Vista Advisor.

Ok, I get it. Install fresh. But what's the deal with the lack of support for, as I read above, the Developer's Flag Ship VS2005? Shouldn't at least Microsoft support, say, Microsoft?

As with probably most of you, I D/L'd from MSDN. But if I was joe blow who picked up Vista from worst fry (bestbuy) on my way home from work, I'd be up all night and feeling totaly burned by morning.

Installed the RTM Vista, Build 6000 ; on a Sony Vaio laptop machine with 1gb of ram & a P4 2.8 ghz ; I guess you need a real 3+ghz machine to run vista and a slick video card because on notebooks... well, let's just say - its slow, and it sucks. I cannot believe this is being put in shrink wrap and sold as the 'next best os' for computer users when it will only work on 10% of home user's PC's. This is going to be G-R-E-A-T PR for Microsoft when people get home and install it (which takes friggin HOURS) ; only to realize that you cannot UNinstall it and it runs like Windows ME on barbichuates & tranquilizers!!! ROFL!!

Well got my action pack copy today took 3 tries to load it on my desktop.. I guess my sound card (USB Audigy 2 NX) will probably never work with it. The graphics are pretty almost reminds me of Linux 3 years ago. I have to agree though the menu interface sucks. runs about half as fast as it used to atleast on a perception basis. Also loaded it on my 3.04 ghz laptop..... Bad move my Geforce FX go5600 simply can't do it and thats in most basic mode. I also upgraded the drive before hand but it seems really slow now.. Pretty much seems unusable also downloaded the update SIS graphics accelerator and have now lost all transparency. I was more impressed when I loaded Knoppix... it actually made my laptop run faster. Bah I am very dissapointed. The one thing I do like the memory test software.

Last year where I worked we hired a developer that had just come from the working on the Vista OS development team. He did not have specific comments other than he left because he said 'it was a total mess'. Granted MS could have fixed a lot of stuff in a year (or if status quo, screwed up even more stuff). Hesitant to install Vista after an experience with installing XP service pack 2, I asked our desk top support person if any one at work has installed it (over 4000 people work here). He said he had installed it for a number of early adapters (also referred to as masochists). He said a few people were really happy and had no negative experiences but the majority had problems. I'm seriously thinking of buying an Apple computer the next time around, you know one of the dual boot systems so that when I have the normal 'my windows OS is hosed again experience' I will at least have a system that I can use. My wife switched to an Apple about 2 1/2 years ago and has not had any problems.

I can't believe people actually like vista. I work at best buy at store number 221 in the computer department Tulsa OK, best damn best buy in the country ( check if you think I'm lying )and it pains me to promote such junk. So far we have had three computers BSOD and I'm not talking about just dumping physical memory either.
In my opinion 1 in 1000 BSOD MIGHT be acceptable. If MS hyped about how safe this OS was then how come on the first day I had a ZLOB downloader on my computer? What makes that funny is that I have only been on the MS forums checking for good and bad things so far... hhmmm, seems kinda funny to me.
Anywho back to it, after this fiasco with the trojan I decided to go back to Firefox... Firefox would go through the installation until it got to the final touches and ''File is corrupt'' !!!!!!!(tried the install 3 times, and also tried different download locations different from mozilla's main webpage) well let me put it this way, in my XP firefox is all I ever used and had no use for virus protection, now the first day with IE7 I have a ZLOB? No thanks, Microsoft can have this back at least until SP1 rolls around.
Oh btw I am now back to my XP on my firefox right now surfing safely as ever.
That reminds me how people complain that FF doesn't work with certain webpages, well the reason for that is that you haven't downloaded the Active X plugin from mozilla. Why you would want to do that is clearly not obvious to me.
I am also keeping in mind that active X accounts for over 70% of the viruses out there, so I'll stick to flash in FF thank you.

Yes vista sure does LOOK pretty, I want an OS that works, not something that looks like it would work. Sure I can use ''ReadyBoost'' or all of the other neat features that mean nothing to me.
Office 07 makes things HARDER dammit!? who would have thought, where are my properties, and margins( ok wait I found the margins sorry)
Finally this whole experience has been bad from the get go with having to RE-install twice and both times I had to verify my license. The third time took the other two just failed completely.

My score from a computer builder/ sales associate on my first vista experience...2/10 That my friends is a very generous 2.
!!!FIREFOX!!!

I installed Vista on my HP computer (2GB RAM, AMD, latest greatest NVidia card, all new stuff) and it is constantly crashing my computer. I am less than impressed - the network drivers are only working after every other reboot, the "great" Aero interface is very slow (and I have a video card with 512MB !!!). Many of the applications are broken and IE7 is the biggest joke- such a clumsy interface, impossible to use. Even I have 2GB RAM, Vista is constantly doing something with the hard drive, even if there are no apps running.

So, going back to Windows XP tonight. I need the computer to work and not to be a Microsoft testbed. Maybe Vista will be usable once SP7 is out.

Tried to upgrade to Vista Ultimate on my brand new dual core box. After two failed upgrades, rolled back to XP and bought a copy of Xandros Professional, a Debian-based Linux distro, for my old computer. I was amazed. Someone has finally made Linux "just work" like Windows. Installation is GUI-based and was a snap; it recognized the gateway automatically, connected to the Net, downloaded its updates and there it was. No problem joining the Windows network and sharing printers and drives. All the software I need (including the firewall, the antivirus, the internet security app, as well as office, graphics, multimedia and DVD apps) comes as part of the distro, works almost identically to the equivalent Windows software, and the files are compatible with Microsoft Office. The OS comes with CrossOver, which runs lots of Windows software, incuding Microsoft Office and Photoshop (if you must have them instead of the native Linux apps) within Linux. And it comes with a membership that allows you to get operating system and software updates automatically for a year; $40 for subsequent years.

Why mess with Vista Ultimate at $499 when you can have a real network operating system, complete with software, for $150?

I have purchased and installed Vista Ultimate RTM, and it is the stupidist thing ever.

I am sorry but after several years of development, this is Microsoft's breakthrough??? I am really disappointed. I have been a professional .NET developer for 6 years now and have always loved the platform and I was hoping Microsoft would do just as good a job on Vista. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 work on Vista, but with SEVERAL ISSUES. At first, SQL Server 2005 wouldn't even start up, it would just disappear. After 3 hours of research, I found out that it did not have the necessary permisssions to run. Whatever happened to user-friendly warning messages, at the least????

Breakthrough OS? What a joke!!! If I did not need Visual Studio and SQL Server, I would install one of the Linux distributions. I know they have Mono (.NET for Linux) and all, but nothing that comes close to Visual Studio and SQL Server.

I will be installing Windows XP Pro again. What a waste of my money.

I was eager to upgrade from Xp to Vista and now that I did it is a big disappointment, most of the above critical behavior happened to me to, also Vista is to patronising.

I"ve had it with Windows.

Installed some custom software on a client machine today. First machine they've bought with Vista, a brand new Dell notebook with Core Duo, 1 GB of RAM, and video that can support the glass UI.

Vista Pros: nice UI look and feel. Good help system.

Vista Cons: slow as a dying dog! I could boot and shutdown my XP notebook in the time it took Vista to get to the password screen. I could boot, shutdown, boot, shutdown, boot, shutdown...boot, shutdown a MacBook in the time it took Vista to boot and be ready for work.

Too much "in your face" stuff. This has always been Windows problem, but it seems worse in Vista. I want to work, not read 20 unimportant messages from my OS!

Just enough movement of commands to force an XP user to the help command.

Annoying security that doesn't really secure a single thing. Do you want to do this? Are you sure? Did you do that? Maybe you shouldn't do that? Did you launch this program? Did you want it to do something? Are you sure? SHUT UP AND JUST WORK!

I'm not impressed. If I want a hip interface, I'll buy an iMac. At least Apple's bouncing icons don't turn a Core Duo into a 286.

I never used Vista, but recently visited the local Staples store to just check it out. At first it looked great, but then I realized how unconfortable it is. Its funny, how they have this new GUI involved -- the desktop manager similar to xgl and beryl, when I ran a simple prog - AIM, it didn't show the fancy visual transformations when minimizing and resoring. I guess it works only for windows' apps. That is just funny. It took me two minutes before I realized that I came there for no reason

Fourth day enduring this new HP machine loaded with Vista. Took 24 hours to get the printer to work. Won't network with my mac. System can't find the "Vista ready" Quickcam after multiple driver re-installs, (though the cam plugged and played on the mac, no install required, just like they say...)

I just bought a new Compaq with Vista and I'm just about to install XP! Vista takes so long to boot and programs start so slowly it's like going back to my old Commodore 64.

I just bought a new machine for our office with Vista. Got to the office, booted up. SLOW as heck (3.3 with 1mb, ATi 256). OK, who cares if it is slow, just connect to the network and lets get to work.... No dice. Can't find the network, and I can't figure it out.... contact HP, they tell me "can't help with network issues". Call our IT guy. Take the computer to him the next week. He works on it a couple days, calls and says "Get rid of it. I'll get you a used machine running XP cheaper that works better, plus I can't get it to network, and I think it will not run some of our enterprise software."

So now I am in this position, I need a number of new computers, as many as ten, and I cannot buy them cause they all come with Vista. So I have to go out an BUY a copy of XP, then buy a new computer with Vista (which I do not want), and then..... oh you get it.

So instead of buying new computers at CompUSA or wherever, I am just buying used ones with XP on Ebay.

Hey computer retailers! Vista is great for business!

Vista is the software equivalent of the Zune. An underwhelming product that has no charisma, and even less functionality. Both these Microsoft breakthroughs are symptomatic of a company past its prime. I am not a Microsoft basher, I have been using MS sw for 20 some years. I have learned to tolerate it, but never love it. It can get the job done as long as you don't jump on the upgrade train. Find a stable incarnation/matrix of software products and use them until they won't work anymore. Its really the only way to get any work done with MS stuff, everytime you upgrade things break, they run slower and you spend most of your time babysitting & googling to try to get your sick hardware happy again.

Vista, I don't think so, unless they rewrite it in machine code, make the DRM an optional module and skin it so you can make it look like & run like the o/s of your choice.

I wait 7 minutes alone for my XP machine (dual 3 ghz cpu, 3 gb of ram) to boot. My G5 (dual 2.5 gig with 2.5 gb ram) is up and running in about a minute (that's rounding up).

The idea of switching to vista anytime in 2007 is laughable. The idea of using my PC is becoming laughable (see prior comment about G5...apply it to all applications, upgrades, stability of the system as compared with my XP box).

Let's get real, Microsoft does not compete anymore. They do own the market, so they are not going away, nor should they, but if another OS (say OSX) can run efficiently (on intel CPUs now), then Microsoft has no excuse. They just didnt make a better OS. I'm NOT a Microsoft hater, but since WinXP, I've found myself using the Mac more and more exclusively, and especially for the client work I do. Both OS' have abilities. It's just about reliablilty at this point.

Now Vista may corrupt your iPod!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/06/napple106.xml

I stumbled onto this page from Google, entering "Vista sucks", and as a Linux fan, I wanted to see if it really does suck as much as all the pro-Linux sites out there say it does. When I saw this page, which, I presume, is dedicated to promoting ASP.NET, which is a Microsoft product, I knew that it wasn't just the open-source fans, like myself, saying Vista sucks, but from someone who manages a site promoting a Microsoft-created technology, no less! In fact, I counted all the pro-Vista and anti-Vista posts on here and counted 10 posts on this page saying Vista worked wonderfully for them (congratulations if it works for you, BTW) and 26 posts saying Vista sucks.

Not to mention, I remember my oldest sister-in-law saying she was planning to buy a new computer sometime this year with Vista on it. I didn't say anything to her about it at the time, but I couldn't help but think she's gonna wind up disappointed when and if she does.

Given how strongly the "Vista sucks" posts on here outnumber the posts saying Vista worked fine for them (a staggering 72% of the posts on here say Vista sucks!), and with this site promoting ASP.NET, which is a Microsoft product, I'm definitely gonna pass this page along to her.

For the record, yes, I have Linux on my PC, running MEPIS, to be exact, and I absolutely LOVE it! :-) I'm a Linux convert as of January of 2005 and haven't looked back since. Not to mention, later this year, Ubuntu is expected to have drivers in their next version that will run internal modems and wireless network cards that have previously never been able to work under Linux -- and my oldest sister-in-law and her husband and family live in a place where they can't get DSL, so they're still on dialup for now, given that they live out in the boonies...

Fred in St. Louis

After using Windows for over 12 years and going through all of the head aches and up's and downs I bought a MacIntel machine that dual boots window XP Pro. I learned the basics of OSX Tiger 10.4.8
in about a week and it is way ahead og the game as far as simplicity, speed, and stability. Not to mention you don't have to screw with tweaking your system for performance, different versions etc... It just works straight out of the box! I have only two programs that I use that won't run on the Mac but with Boot Camp it's no problem and very easy to set up. You can just tell that Vista is trying to be like OSX. I will still continue using Windows XP Pro, it takes Microsoft about 3 Years before there operating systems get stable and I should know, I used them all except for the one before windows 95. It's a no brainer. Get a mac
and dual boot with boot camp, windows runs very stable on that hardware using EFI instead of Bios and you get the best of both worlds. But I gaurantee you that once you go Mac, you won't want to go back to using Windows unless there are programs that don't run on the Mac that you need to run. Other then that, I am going to buy another Mac Mini, Mac Pro, and Mac Book Pro that is all set up and ready to Go!!!!

I laughed pretty hard at the post above from the Linux guy who found this forum searching for "Vista sucks" because that's exactly how I got here, and for the same reason. I really wanted to know if all I've been hearing is true. And apparently it is. Wow.

I didn't plan on posting anything, but since people are really sharing their experiences here, I'll throw in mine as well.

I worked professionally as a Windows only programmer for years. I moved to Linux about seven years ago. I have still had to work with (and program on) Windows over the years. In my years of developing on Linux, I've seen the same power and reliability of Linux/UNIX over Windows from the system call level all the way up through the application stack. This is very technical, but look at the following link, and see how Microsoft's design/architecture compares with Linux/UNIX/FOSS (free open source software):

http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=311

Which do you think is the better-designed system? I've written tens of thousands of lines of code on both systems, and I can tell you from experience which system is more stable and works better. There simply is no comparison.

So does this mean I am recommending Linux for the average disgruntled Windows user? Absolutely not.

Linux is too big of a jump in my opinion. While you might do just fine with Ubuntu, Xandros or Linspire Linux, most people would really hit it off best with a Mac. Apple's operating system is based on UNIX, has all the stability of Linux/UNIX, but also has all the commercial applications you would want and quite probably the best designed interface and software in the industry. It is a wonderful combination of a powerful, industrial-strength technological core (UNIX), and very innovative, stable, highly user-friendly software. It really is a well-done system.

I'm not saying this for myself, or because I hate Microsoft. I'm taking the time to post this for your sake. I'm happy. I'll be in Linux for the rest of my days. If I didn't have to work so heavily with Linux, I would be a full-time Mac devote.

Yes, Mac is more expensive. But which would you rather have, three years of a computer that does NOTHING you want, or up to five years of a computer that just plain works (and also looks incredibly stylish to boot). Sometimes you get what you pay for.

Imagine a world where you never have to experience an unpleasant upgrade ever again, your software always works like it used to, and you are the one in charge of your system. No anti-virus software, no worms, to spyware. Really. I'm not kidding.

After what I've read recently in the trade journals, and what I've seen on this forum, I would say making the jump to Apple is much less troublesome than making the jump to Vista.

In any case, best of luck to you.

And for you developers who think you can't do without SQL Server, you really should give PostgreSQL a chance. It's better, and free. Read the history on http://www.postgresql.org. I work with both systems in production. PostgreSQL whips SQL Server.

I also Googled "Vista Sucks" after my action pack "upgrade" experience. For fellow Action Pack people out there, here's a few tid-bits that I learned:

1) The product keys provided will only allow UPGRADES on existing XP Pro machines. No more installing to a clean drive and showing proof of existing OSes. On a clean drive, you MUST install XP Pro first, then choose "upgrade" from within XP. Yes, it blows.

2) I have a new nVidia 680i board with a "Vista" sticker on the box. I've tried 7 times now to install, each failing with a very vague error message "could not continue installing - not changes were made - please restart the install program". Nice.

Called MS and they informed me that Action Pack people must pay $59 for support on installing Vista. After I stopped laughing, they were wise enough to pass me on to support. 147 minutes later, I'm at the same exact point I started. Obviously there is some driver issue - but no one is quite sure why or what it is.

It's a nightmare and a joke. Yes, others have had good luck. Good for you. But I'm with others on this in that Vista should not have been released. Most everything is half-baked, and specifically for developers, it's a no-go. Sure, you could do everything virtually - but you should never have to. The comments I read above are beyond forgiving; the facts are out, and Vista is at this point about as (or possibly more) difficult to install/upgrade as your favorite flavor of Linux. It makes me sick.

The one thing MS did get right is the new Vista slogan: "The WOW starts now". Which is funny, because that is Exactly what I said when the install failed after 7 tries (removing, disableing etc XP down to a mere shell). Wow is right.

I'm sticking with XP. And selling my MS stock. This will be known as the beginning of the end for MS.

I was going to setup my own website, vista sucks, but then I found this one! When vista upgrade advisor told me I should have no problems upgrading from XP Pro SP2, I fell for the hype about better security and upgraded my business machine to vista business edition (£190 almost $400 for the upgrade in the UK). I expected a few flaky apps would have to be retired but I never expected Outlook 2002 to fail - this is one of MS's flagship products, right ? wrong. I found that for all my pop3 accounts outlook under vista forgets the password each start outlook, is that annoying or what ? Apparently outlook 2002/2003 store the password in a special area of the registry, which gets nuked by the security layer vista adds to the registry.

There was no compatibility warning for Quickbooks, my other business package, which actually crashes and corrupts your accounts database when you try to reconcile on vista .. fortunately the back statement arrived the day after I installed vista, so there weren't many transactions entered before the crash, I was able to roll back to my backup after reinstalling XP

BTW, the reason for the crash was, when you reconcile, a pdf is generated of the bank statement to date, and this is done with a 'virtual' printer driver, which guess what does not install under vista. Quickbooks does not notice the problem and crashes as it tries to save the database, leaving your reconciliation in tatters. Rolling back the reconciliation does not help

Add my name to the list of victims. Aero worked fine on my 2004 laptop, even better after updating with latest ATI video drivers for Vista. So what's my gripe? Same as David (7) says "Even basic things that worked correctly in XP seem to be broken in Vista, e.g. wireless networking disconnects randomly." Besides wireless just disconnecting, it fails to reconnect, even after reboots. After Visa drops the wireless connection I have to recycle the power on my wireless router to get Vista to reconnect again. After trying every wireless network authentication option on both Visa and router, including no authentication, and getting the same randomly dropped connection each time, I tried installing my XP wireless network drivers in Vista. This provided a great yo-yo effect of watching the wireless connection go up/down/up/down/up/down, but at least it was consistent. It was also the deciding factor in re-installing XP. Next step is to replace MSFT with AAPL.

I have to agree, it really does suck. Ah, the list....

*Poor video performance from a 6600 gt.

*32bit business version can't count past 3.24Gb ram, although beta1 and beta2 could see all 4GB fine. RC1 and RC2 stuck at 3.24GB also.

*Always disk io even when your doing nothing, makes me think it will wear out the hard drives long before the 5 years warranty expires... That is something the disk manufacturers are going to hate.

*hardware that was supported in release candidate can't find drivers in final release.

*Windows update complains that a functioning device with a valid driver from MS updates needs to be updated then fails with error message that new update is older than existing driver. Its the same damn driver from the same site, wtf.

*Digital rights management, lacking video drivers = poor mpg2 playback..

There's more but I've had enough of Vista for one day. Its a good thing I've got X64 on the primary drive, otherwise this whole vista exercise would have really p*ssed me off. Now if can just get debian to run the RT2500 wireless pci card properly thats where I will go instead. Forget Vista....

Vista is an absurdly arrogant op system.Key word the whole world needs to be "Proprietary MS". I had to buy a new AIO printer because my printer and scanner as well as most software won't work with Vista. The AIO won't network with it and it doesn't take the software disk packed with the HP "Vista ready printer".It won't do IPods unless you get the 7.0.2 version of Itunes and then you get your Ipod and library wiped clean for starters. You will be talking to support for days on end and they will only scratch there heads and tell you to do things that will only make it worse so pack a lunch, better yet save your money and buy a Mac.

Sorry all you vista supporters, Vista sucks.. What a resource hog! I feel bad for anyone who bought this. You paid for a graphics upgrade, and for all of your config menu's to be buried. Not to mention, I have messed around on the public release of this, and it locks up doing what? simple crap.. moving files, etc. PATHETIC.. not to mention, yeah you can open the task manager, but where is the shutdown option?? so now I have to rely on the start menu which locks up with explorer, or the power button.. I had to reset my machine 2 times in the midst of copying one 300mb file..

piece of junk. Im staying with xp pro.. I will go to a mac before im forced into vista..

I must say that my experience with Vista has been horrible so far. I am no Microsoft basher and/or think that Gates is the new coming of Satan, but this is too much. I have been involved heavily in developing with MS technologies, ASP/SQL Server etc..

I can now see a switch to Mac or Linux in my near future. It's one thing if you download free linux (I tried Ubuntu) from internet and something (sound card) does not work. That's understandable. If you buy $400 operating system and the networking+sound does not work and graphics only works with bugs and garbled display..and when you eventually get the networking to work, it disconnects randomly (as others commented above) - THAT'S COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS !!!

And what about the fact that Vista is constantly using the hard drive - and I have 3GB of RAM and the performance is absolutely horrible..

What was MS thinking? I am glad I could try Vista from MSDN first at my workplace without paying for it.. Of course I am not going to buy this piece of crap. And I have to install XP back on my work machine now, because Vista is not usable for work.

Vista is completely horrible, I have 2GB ram and GForce 256 Mb and sometimes vista gets retarded and sometimes crashes. And I can't run some of my programs or games :(

I also found this site by typing "vista sucks." I saw a buddy play around with vista on his laptop and it sparked my interest. I wasn't planning on upgrading because I simply didn't want to spend the money. At the same time I was worried that I might 'miss out' on the WOW. Having read this forum, I have no desire at all to upgrade. I am glad I have no Microsoft stock to sell, and I don't even plan on going to Best Buy to see how bad vista sucks. ALthough that was my plan before reading the posts...

Bought a Macbook recently, haven't had to restart it once (in about a month) except for a single update.

My brother's Vista system runs about as quickly as a turtle dipped in molasses climbing up a hill.

Apple has a beautiful interface, and I never have to install any anti-virus anything.

Vista is bloated and convoluted. It's really no comparison.

WOW = Why O Why!

I guess my opinion is like others. I actually purchased a new machine out of desperation because one of my XP company machines got hit by lightning 3 days after Vista was released (could not find an XP machine in any store).

As of today I will order parts to build a new XP machine or get a used one from some local computer shop or the newspaper from someone silly enough to sell the XP and keep their new Vista.

When I find time I will do some experimenting to see if I can get some XP Drivers for the new machine and downgrade it.

Basically I have had many or most of the issues posted here that everyone else has had and then some, way to many to list so I will just give one more new problem that I have not seen listed yet.

I have four computers in the office, all are visible from any place in the office, we have never had a security issue so we did not lock the machines down much. The one thing I did do was simply point my IE to a fake proxy server that does not exist. This works fine to stop IE from going on the internet, but it allows Windows auto updates to continue to work and the antivirus to continue to work since they bypass the proxy anyway. Well in Vista you can not do this. At least I have yet to find a way. As soon as you put the proxy info in IE you break windows updates and the antivirus updates even though in the antivirus software you told it to not use a proxy.

That and the fact that my brand new specially designed company software locks up constantly on the Vista machine is enough to call it a loss and use the new machine as spare parts in my network.

When I came here I had no intention on writing a post I thought it was just me.

Oteotd

Stand by for a day or so--information will be released soon on how to get a refund for Vista. I personally would like to have a mass consumer vote by not accepting this product. I am out $400 for Vista, not counting the time wasted installing and attempting to troubleshoot problems that should not exist.

The site www.vistarefund.info will be online soon. It does not collect money, advertise or attempt to sell anything. Just an information source that the informed can use to end this madness.

I too found this site by typing Vista sucks.

I haven't tried Vista yet, but I'm looking at a new computer. I went to apple and configured the machine I want. It seemed expensive. Indeed, it's expensive. So I thought, I wonder how much a similar Dell would cost?

So off I go to Dell. I spend an hour online configuring my system, and at the end it says "Vista doesn't support the 30" monitor". I think, this can't be right. So I talk to tech support. Sure enough, their high-end graphics machine does not support the 30" monitor with Vista. but XP isn't an option in the "Home division". The only way to get XP is to go to the small business division of Dell. But why would I buy a brand new machine running an already obsolete OS? That doesn't make sense.

Not only that, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out which version of Vista I should buy. But the monitor issue made it easy to figure out which version of Vista to buy - I'll get OSX. Simple. More expensive, but simple. And the only upgrading I'll do to that machine over the years is to add more RAM when the price comes down. Besides, after all I've read, I'll be damned if I'm going to hook it up to a $5000 high-end printer and a $3000 high-end scanner to find out they don't work with Vista. My time is worth more than that. Looks like I'll be making the switch to MAC.

What a mess. I used CPM prior to DOS prior to Windows... etc. Over 35 years of this stuff and this is the worst attempt yet.

Wait for SEVERAL service packs before going here unless you are buying hardware with vista already installed.

I too waited patiently for the official release of VISTA. No WOW here. Almost broke the reset button, pressing it so many times. Lock up after lock up. Only one CPU of my two 64bit dual core computer worked. It did see all 4 gig of RAM. Did not like my $1500 Video Card either. Software installs were iffy at best. Adobe software is not happy with VISTA yet, especially not 64bit. Looks like much the same old stuff under the hood. DLL's and driver hell all over again. After the last blue screen, the speakers started screeming and my D drive started dancing the heads back and forth then fried before I could power off. Overall a very frustrating 5 hour experience before tossing a hard drive and Vista along with it. The pretty graphics just aren't worth the trouble.

Vista absolutely blows!!! I was forced to buy a new computer and opted for HP's Slimline... not a bad machine but Vista is the only option and Vista sucks ass. Not only did I spend entirely too much time trying upgrade my Quickbooks so Vista could interpret a year old program, I had to spend money on Norton security because the Vista can't handle the "old" xp norton language. What a bunch of shit. Here's the final rub. I spent two hours on the phone yesterday with Habeedagee only to be told that Vista and Quicken are NOT compatible. WHAT! M

I have to agree with the comments above. I got my action pack yesterday and was disappointed with the problems encountered with SQL Server. To add insult to injury, the system appeared to have random DNS issues. I have just rolled back to Windows XP and have decided to wait a while before trying Vista again...

I was impressed with the visual effects and the interface seemed cool but I am not prepared to forego all my productivity under XP for them.

It's a shame...

What I can't understand is why Microsoft in an effort to add more user hand holding to the OS created a product that requires even more tech-savvy than any of their previous products. The people responding on this forum are all very technically inclined developers, if they can't hack their way through to OS...how are their parents going to do it.

This is just another example of a software company releasing a product for public beta testing. It took Microsoft so long to develop the product to its current state that they "had" to release it to appease stock holders, but the public is forced to test it until all the complaints and hardware varieties result in enough data for Microsoft to release service packs.

I started reading this thread to determine what the real advantages to upgrading were. I was hoping that the security improvements would be a key feature, but it really seems that the security additions are a smoke screen. For example Defender is available for XP, has some serious flaws in detection, and the UAC is nothing more than more dialog boxes being forced upon the user. The real problems with security in Windows aren’t people hacking into your home pc, its malware and web based exploits. Why not release a new version of IE that prevents script based installs except those that meet a stringent approval process. Adobe would submit their Flash plugin, it would be added to an authorization list and IE could install it...otherwise the browser wouldn't install it. This doesn't seem like a big leap in logic.

So the real question comes back around to Vista, what reason would anyone have for upgrading?

Vista is S-L-O-W. I am a geek and disabled the security stupidity for admins. I am running it on a high powered dual proc 64-bit machine.

Windows 2003 server and XP FLY compared to what this crazy bloatware OS called Vista does.

Microsoft still has not got it. They went backwards with this piece of crap..

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.

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.

it's like this ur on xp ...
ur on car u find that ur are avin a tyre flat....
ur on vista u find that .......
ur outta gas!!!!!!!!!!!

To everyone who's come before me. Thanks for reinforcing my beliefs that I shouldn't buy Vista. With what I've read I think I'll make my new business a big success. At least until I can only buy the Vista machines. Right now I'm buying all the XP machines that the companies like Best Buy and Fry's didn't sell before the latest and greatest came out. I've been buying new unused computers since ME was big and selling them to co-workers and friends but I never thought MS would screw so much. I've got a computer that I built with all the best including 4gig RAM, Nivida 512 meg card, 3.4 Intel and water cooled but I won't subject it to Vista. Not even for a test. By the way, those of you that need systems for your office I can get you systems with XP Pro less than 500.00 per system including a fully register version of Office 2000. WOW

Just in case it didn't work with my post here's the website. www.apcforyoutoo.net

"Wow", it's unbelievable how much flames I can see rising up to the sky in a pro-Microsoft technology forum. And it confirms that you should wait for at least a few Vista service packs - or simply ignore it! Maybe we should call it 'MS Hasta La Vista alpha 0.0.0001a pre-development nightly-build 8497912'.

Anyway, I probably made the best decision for years and bought my first Apple computer, a neat MacBook Pro 15" Core 2 Duo, 2GB. This made me really say "WOW", "WOW" and again "WOW" !!!! :-))

Not to mention I got quite a history with several *nixes (Linux, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris), Win3.1, 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, DOS, Commodore 64.

If you consider yourself a geek, install Linux (Ubuntu) or get a Mac. If you just wanna get work done or are not so geekish, get a Mac. If you still really need that vista-crap, you can use some virtual machine (VMware, Boot Camp, Parallels) and play with it :-)

Cheers
Peter

I installed Vista on my HP computer (2GB RAM, AMD, latest greatest NVidia card, all new stuff) and it is constantly crashing my computer. I am less than impressed - the network drivers are only working after every other reboot, the "great" Aero interface is very slow (and I have a video card with 512MB !!!). Many of the applications are broken and IE7 is the biggest joke- such a clumsy interface, impossible to use. Even I have 2GB RAM, Vista is constantly doing something with the hard drive, even if there are no apps running.

So, going back to Windows XP tonight. I need the computer to work and not to be a Microsoft testbed. Maybe Vista will be usable once SP7 is out.

For several hours, I have been climbing the Vista learning curve--from base camp XP. It has not been fun. In fact, if BestBuy had the honor to take back this beta-released-as-ready piece of crap without spanking me with a restocking fee, I would bring it back tomorrow and find a used XP to work on until the REAL Vista was finally released. For a few years, I have been defending Microsoft against all the Sucks crowd. Now, I can not with a clear conscience (as far as Vista goes; XP was so stable I could smile). Vista-beta Sucks!

I want my money back!!!!!!

All I have to say is "Oh my god Vista sucks!"
I'm a software Engineer at a mortgage company and we have in house software built with MS Visual Studio, MS Office, ASP.Net, C#, VB and C++. All in All about 50,000 lines of code all built with Microsoft development tool to run on Microsoft operating systems and connect to Microsoft Servers. We are about as full on Microsoft fan boys as we can get.

Our latest batch of new Pcs showed up with Vista installed on them. They ran so slow I thought we had bought the wrong computers. I even opened one of the cases to look at the CPU thinking there had been some kind of mix up.

None of our existing software will run on Vista. The off the shelf commercial software just fails to start. Our in house software starts but the COM controls that USED to be part of the OS are missing. There also seems to be dozens of API functions that are missing also.

So here are my choices.
Rewrite 50,000 lines of code and recreate missing COM controls from scratch or return all the new computers. Guess which one we did. Yep, we just returned 50 brand new computers. Dell is replacing them with windows XP computers.

If you just got a new Vista pc just call up and return it. Vista is so bad that they don’t even ask why you want to return the computer; as soon as you say it has Vista on it they process the return with no further questions.


There is one guy in our office that uses a MAC and if he walks past my office laughing one more time I’m going to show him where he can stick his fire wire.

Okay, count me too. In general, I love Microsoft products - primarily because I'm a developer and nothing else comes close to VS2005. I can bang out ASP.NET 2.0 sites like nothing - I love it. I was ready to hug Balmer.

I was frothing at the mouth for Vista. I REALLY wanted to like it. Like so many others, I spent thousands of dollars, and WAY TOO MUCH TIME!

I echo all of the comments above. I'm amazed they totally disregarded backward compatibility? People need to be productive more than ever and they give us EYE CANDY?

Who cares? There is not a single compelling reason to upgrade. There is nothing worthwhile in VISTA that you can't already do in XP. LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN. THERE IS NOTHING IN VISTA YOU CAN'T ALREADY DO IN XP. The visuals aren't worth the pain.

VISTA IS DEAD.

WAHH WAHH WAHH,

Honestly the last 20 comments sound like they were posted by Apple as a new propaganda marketing campaign. The RTM is exactly that, Release to Manufacture. You all complain that your drivers are buggy, well give it some time. You honestly can't expect the hardware companies to pre-emptively make drivers. It's because of morons like you guys who are so eager to upgrade that Microsoft was pressured into releasing Vista so quickly. Yes I’m using Vista right now. No I haven't had any problems. If you don't want to waist so many resources why don’t you turn off the glass effects?

Return to your Apple Blog / Linux fanatic forums to cry more in my opinion.

Why should we expect a product that costs $400+ to kinda sorta work out of the box? You're so right! Why should a company with an enormous market share, loads of talented programmers, and more money than some countries actually make a product that impresses users after promising us that the "WOW starts now"?

Stark, you're absolutely right. We should just sit there and wait for a service pack or perhaps several service packs. What a great idea.

Don't blame Apple for this. It’s because of people like YOU who have low expectations of their purchases, people like you who just sit back and take crap for $400 and call it "patience", people like you who wouldn't know quality if it, well, if it was installed as an OS on your computer that Microsoft can continue to feel fine about putting out an albatross like Vista.

You could have kept it civil and said, my vista experience is fine, maybe you guys should turn off the glass effects. No, you went and called people who know when something sucks "morons".

Are people "morons" because they notice security gaps?

Are people "morons" because they have to constantly reboot to stay on their own network?

Are people "morons" because they buy a machine that says "vista ready" and expect at least a few things to go right?

And hey, Stark, if you haven't noticed, most of these people are just trying Vista, after which they are quickly reverting to XP. They are not whining. They are providing the kind of feedback necessary for Microsoft to get its act together in the next service pack. But don't call anyone who shells out $400 (or whatever it costs with the MSDN thing) and expects at the very least a pleasant experience as promised a MORON.

By the way, it's "waste", not "waist".

My old computer was just over 5 years old and starting to show it's age with the newer software so I decided it was time for a new one. I waited for the Vista release so the new machine would have an up to date operating system. (That tactic worked great when XP was released). I bought a new Dell XPS 410 with Vista pre installed. The machine has a 2.1 GHZ coreduo processor, 2 GB of ram and a 256MB video card. The new Dell is slower than my five year old IBM Netvista with the first pentium 4 processor and windows XP pro. The Dell constantly locks up and freezes. I can't even play music with media player because the audio drops out. I always played music while doing other things with the IBM and never had audio problems, it's a good thing I didn't donate the IBM because I have to keep going back to it to get anything done! Something is running in the background on the Dell that constantly writes to the hard drive, I can't figure out what it is and stop it. How long before it kills the hard drive? I have gotten real good at using 'system restore' on this machine because every attempted install of any of my XP software has been a disaster. Why in the hell didn't microsoft make vista backward compatable with older software? XP can run win 95 software. My old printer and scanner won't work, no drivers for vista. Installed the Kodak software for my digital camera and screwed up the system so bad I had to use system restore. The Roxio DVD burning software did an automatic update and downloaded a file that caused errors and I had to use system restore to get rid of the problem that caused and turn off the Roxio auto update to prevent it from happenning again. IMHO Vista is a slow, buggy, bloated operating system. It's a polished turd! I can't believe microsoft took five years and many billions of dollars to develop this piece of crap and inflict it on a unsuspecting public. ...And what the hell is wrong with the hardware manufacturers and software writers? They knew vista was coming for 5 damn years and they don't have drivers and software available that will work with it? ... I have been attempting to use this thing for three weeks now and have given up on Vista. In order to make this new Dell a useful machine, I just ordered a copy of win XP media center edition 2005 to replace vista.

I have not personally tested or used Vista. but let me offer a different viewpoint. I work for a major copier manufacturer in their hardware support division.

I field technical problems comming from both end users and MIS staff where our devices are deployed and I have spoken with factory reps from HP, Ricoh and Toshiba. all report that making their products work with Vista is a monsterous uphill battle.

Most printer/copier/MFP companies have not released ANY Vista specific drivers, They have "tested" their XP drivers and some are fortunate enough to have some features work. I literally have reams of release notes from our software engineers documenting inop features that range from "everything works just fine" to "can't even get a Windows test page out of it".

Word to the wise: check with your hardware manufacturer about YOUR SPECIFIC HARDWARE before you upgrade to Vista.

When it comes to hardware, there's a rule I follow that has made me a happy man. It goes: Never buy version one. If my experience with Vista has had any positive outcome, it is to show me that I need to apply the same rule to OSes. Fortunately I got my software for free via the MS Academic Alliance, but I'm really feeling for all of the people (represented by these posts) who paid retail (who paid at all, for that matter) price for this travesty of an operating system.

I'm a die-hard Microsoft fan, but I have to admit that they haven't dropped the ball this badly since Windows Me. I tried installing Microsoft Money last night... of course it's not compatible. One of my definitions for "dropping the ball" is when your own software isn't compatible with your OS. If I wanted an OS that didn't run any of my software I'd have bought a Mac, at least it runs its own software.

I echo what most others have said, stick with XP. I've got my XP cd out and am planning to repent as soon as I finish this post. For those considering an upgrade, give Vista a year (six months at least) to mature-- especially if you're paying for it. If you're not paying for it, and have a day and a half to waste, and have a copy of XP handy for when you can't take it anymore (and that point WILL come)-- then sure, give it a spin.

Final advice for those who do decide to brave these waters: keep one hand on the mouse, and the other on the reset button.

Hasta La Vista Baby! The Frown Starts Here!

Well, all I can say is time to buy a new Macintosh and don't look back...

We have had Vista for about a month now on a month old Gateway 1.6ghz 1.5G of RAM and this thing is just about unusable as a PC. The MS software is current and when I try to install new ATI drivers I get a "unauthorized download". My WEI is 2.3 because of graphics and the rest are in the high 3's to mid 4's. Installed the printer drivers and it totally killed the little speed I did have so we had to uninstall it.

Given a choice I'd rather run OS2 Warp on a PC Jr. It would be fatster. I'll be installing XP shortly.

Just bought a new quad core with Vista ultimate... what a mistake! Didn't they anywhere along the line have an ordinary person try it out while they watched? It is the most frustrating, time-consuming, poorly constructed, obtrusive, over-priced, non-functional piece of software junk I've ever had the misfortune to get involved with. MS should be ashamed of themselves for foisting this on an unsuspecting public... I honestly think this is the Lincoln Continental of Microsoft. Just as the American car companies started their downward slide to irrelevance when they started producing bloated pieces of junk, Microsoft will, with Vista, be viewed as unresponsive to their customers, and begin a long descent, unless they wake up.

Vista, what a POS. I upgraded my 2 gig, dual core 6600, Ati 1950 machine and within the first hour I crashed it by right mouse clicking an application icon on the bar to stop it. Repeated it several times. Microsoft is famous for giving tests to new employees asking things like "why are manhole covers round?" I believe they need to give entrence exams to the senior managers. I'm hoping that this is the beginning of the end for Gates/Balmer regime. How a company can develop software using the spaghetti method is beyond me (throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks). I agree that this os is not release candidate material. Why are consumers responsible for testing? Why did it take so long to release but yet continues to crash? Why are basic OS design principles ignored? OSs should not crash when an application fails--ever. I have to design software using SQL Server 2005 & VS 2005. I want to play games too. But good god, this software sucks. My recommendation is to get rid of the entire OS development team down to the janitor and rebuild that organization.

The only good thing about this is, as an government employee, I get to put VISTA on the do not buy list. Revenge is sweet.

I am an IT pro and have been using and installing Microsoft products since 1992.

I also found this page by searching Vista Sucks. I wonder why that happened...maybe because Vista does suck?

I have been trying to get it working properly for 3 days and have now officially given up and are switching back to XP MCE 2005 for AT LEAST a year and I may possibly never go back to Vista.

The upgrade from 98 to XP was ok, and it WAS faster in some ways. It had real improveements. The ONLY so called improvements are visual with Vista and its not worth it!!

Regretting a wasted weekend working on Vista,
Ken

I have had a PC since they came out. MS Vista has broken the large majority of the applications I like to run and slowed my machine down to a level that can best be described as "just faster than a herd of turtles."

The final straw was the "0×800705AD" error when copying large files across my home network. See this (not mine) blog for details / humor:

http://buckwheats.wordpress.com/2006/12/12/vista%E2%80%A6-don%E2%80%99t-try-to-copy-and-paste-o/

What MS doesn't reveal regarding the above error is that in addition to erroring out on the vista machine without a human-readable explanation is that it will also chew up resources on the remote (non-vista) machine such that whomever is logged onto the remote machine cannot get applications (including task manager, start...shutdown, etc.) to launch. NEAT STUFF.

I am in no laughing mood after one upgrade from XP and one clean install. Even with disabling all non-essential eye candy and services, Vista runs like a pig. Machines are almost identical Dells with 2.8 GHz processors, 2 GB RAM and adequate Video Cards. Not the fastest things on the market, but certainly not ancient technology by any stretch. I have one XP re-install in progress and the "clean" machine is going back to XP tomorrow.

Beware!

I’ve worked for Microsoft, and I am severely disappointed with Vista thus far.

I did a clean install the business edition. I found the user experience to be counter-productive. If you have ANY previous experience on a Windows operating system whatsoever, you may become irritated by the countless menus, guides, and wizards. Most tasks seemed to require more effort than it did in Windows XP. I was very dissatisfied with performance. I saw no real benefit, even though resources were devoured in order to run Vista.

Most of all, I am perpetually insulted by the Mickey Mouse feel and philosophy behind the Vista platform. After installing the business edition (the key word being “business”), I logged into a screen with a two inch by two inch avatar of a puppy staring at me…

There was nothing “business” about my whole experience.

I don’t use Linux in any way, but I think Vista will drive customers away. It’s a resource hog that delivers almost no value when compared to Windows XP. I want an OS that is streamlined, and requires as little space as possible to do the job. Useless bells and whistles make me angry, and I hate having to configure every OS so that it doesn’t give me countless, useless menus, reminders, and help balloons. It’s the gurus in I.T. (not the boss’s secretary) who will be making purchasing decisions, and it would be a cold day in Hell before I would roll this product out in an enterprise environment.

When the licensing nightmares are figured in with this mediocre product, one realizes that Microsoft just released the software version of the Ford Edsel.

Wow. Michael S. comments are way on the money. I too am a .Net developer and I regret installing Vista. I am very dissapointed with screen refreshing (I have flickering, even though I have a workhorse machine and video card). All my drivers are up to date.

I shut down a process crss.exe because I thought it may have been a trojan. I not only received the blue screen of death, but rather than recover gracefully, I had to do a restore! The User access stuff is horrible. I have no clue how non-techies (especially those who run with User permissions) will get some software to run on their machine without having to accept a freakin' dialogue box ever time it starts up.

Instead of providing errors, I had a difficult time determining where an XP driver incompatibility was when Vista would hang instead of shutting down.


Try this one on for size...Auto-hide your taskbar and try dragging an icon to the Quick Launch bar. You can't. The Task bar won't show. I have to un-auto-hide the task bar to drag links to the taskbar.

How could Microsoft release this abomination called Vista???

I am adamently telling people NOT to upgrade to vista until there is better drive support and Microsoft works out the kinks.

XP worked great.

Michael S. Comments
I have purchased and installed Vista Ultimate RTM, and it is the stupidist thing ever.

I am sorry but after several years of development, this is Microsoft's breakthrough??? I am really disappointed. I have been a professional .NET developer for 6 years now and have always loved the platform and I was hoping Microsoft would do just as good a job on Vista. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 work on Vista, but with SEVERAL ISSUES. At first, SQL Server 2005 wouldn't even start up, it would just disappear. After 3 hours of research, I found out that it did not have the necessary permisssions to run. Whatever happened to user-friendly warning messages, at the least????

Breakthrough OS? What a joke!!! If I did not need Visual Studio and SQL Server, I would install one of the Linux distributions. I know they have Mono (.NET for Linux) and all, but nothing that comes close to Visual Studio and SQL Server.

I will be installing Windows XP Pro again. What a waste of my money.

I think they've already released Vista SP1... it comes labelled as Windows XP, though. Let's just say that I upgraded to XP, and it solved all of the problems I was having with Vista. My hardware works again and everything.

For those of you switching back (who are also tired of the same old XP wallpapers), don't forget to grab all the refreshingly new wallpapers that installed with Vista, to use on your new XP installation.

You can even google "windows aero glass" and get some wallpaper to simulate the aero glass effect. It won't be functional, of course, but you'd hardly be any worse off than you were with Vista in that respect.

WOW! is right, i have a computer repair business and have started getting calls from people wanting me to take vista off of their new machines and install XP. This is definitely the biggest botched operating system since windows ME. I am also getting ready to start replacing hard drives too because with all the freeze ups this system does it will be killing hard drives like crazy.

i started a vista blog months ago in anticipation of being the guy with the answers. lol@me. got suckered in by the nice gui and the segui font.
ive put this crap on just about every configuration you can imagine at one point or another. tried to make it a media sharing machine, tried to make it a business desktop, tried to make it a gaming rig, all with high end hardware.
blah, microsuk can keep this junk. blue screens, incompatable soft, freezing, cpu spikes, blah...

so am i the guy with the answers? no, im the guy who stopped caring about 6 entries into my blog. you want answers, go to msdn, you want an o/s, go elsewhere.

I had downloaded Vista Business through the MSDNAA and I was so unimpressed by it that I have since downgraded back to XP Pro. At least that is an operating system that actually works. I had so much trouble getting normal programs to run and especially since they are programs that come with my HP notebook, you think they could install, but nooooooo. I couldn't get one single damn program to install. Vista did not like any of them.

Second, all that eye candy that Vista uses doesn't do a damn thing for me except slow things down.

Third is Windows ReadyBoost. You mean to tell me that Vista can't efficiently manage the memory that is already on the machine. Nooooo, we have to plug in a flash drive for that. How ridiculous.

Fourth, I really hate the User Account Control. Yes I know you can turn it off but at a risk of harming the system, oh no. *sarcasm* It's good in theory but that's about it. The damn thing keeps popping up on programs YOU ARE ACTUALLY TRYING TO INSTALL, that is if you can get programs to run on Vista.

Vista also chews up my battery life more than XP ever did. I would be lucky to get more than an hour and a half out of my laptop.

They might as well have called this the second coming of ME, or in simpler terms, ME 2.0. Thank God that all it cost me was 5 blank CDs.

Does anyone want my ferrari laptop's peripherals?

He didn't make it out of his upgrade surgery alive.

Oh brother. The apple ads are spot on.

Vista sucks big time! It wouldn't surprise me if it becomes as badly regarded as Millenium Edition.

Here are my peeves:

* Over all slower performance than XP.
* Continuous requests for "permission" to do common tasks.
* Incompatibility with Quickbooks 2006 (had to buy 2007), Adobe Acrobat 6, Sonic CD burning software, etc.
* A lousy backup program that doesn't permit selective file backup (but at least permits an image backup of the whole hard drive.)
* A highly-overated "aero" interface.
* Numerous and completely new ways in which to interact with Windows, without any noticeable improvement. Happy hunting.
* Inability to save settings of common programs because of Vista's tighter lock on the Registry.
* Inability to save from Quickbooks to my external hard drive, because I don't have "permission" to do so (even as an administrator).

I could go on and on...

Sure, installation was relatively easy. No problem there. I have a Gigabyte 965-family MB with 2GB of RAM, 320GB HD, etc, etc. It's the operating system itself which is so irritating.

I'm a computer consultant and I have to keep-up with the latest and greatest offerings from Microsoft. If I didn't, I would uninstall Vista in a heart beat.

The only other thing that irritates almost as much, is the new Office 2007. Yeah, let's redesign the entire user interface with the "ribbon of confusion." Ugh. Another non-starter in my book.

Buyer beware.

Regards,
David H.

Well,

The wow starts here, wow, does this suck.

I have been watching the recent vista commercials, and what the hell does running up a mountain have to do with using your computer?

Ill tell you :), using vista feels exactly like running up a mountain, its tiresome, slow, and in the end, when you get to the top, i.e. vista is installed, you begin the decent into craporama!. Everything is downhill from here.

I was forced to purchase vista on some new "brand new" dell laptops and what I found was very frustrating.

The customer wanted to do somthing that apparently microsoft thinks is too advanced. They wanted to use remote access with a PC card modem, hmm XP has supported this simple feature for years, but Vista, nope, NOT 1 Vendor, Not Verizon, Not Sprint, Not Cingular, not anybody has a compatible solution, we tried, egad we tried to find an answer but nobody will even try it.

Then there are the printers, or rather the lack of them.

When windows XP was released, tons of hardware worked with it, I remember being thrilled with the fact that I could install stuff from day one, but with vista, NOTHING WORKS, I have BRAND New HP Color laser printers that have NO drivers, I cant even use the basic drivers that are inside of vista because they wont properly connect via the Network. Add to that the problem of Adobe software, the brand new Acrobat 8.0 Pro, is a NO GO on vista, and it was only released in november! It wont even install without performing hack work. Once installed, try to print!, CLUNK soorry no printing or documents or PDF's for you my friend.

The AeroGlass interface is bloated, and requires too much hardware to make it look reasonable, and why do we need floaty windows, dammit just let me install my program without having to "authorize" it 3 times, ugh.

Add to that, security, there is no security, perhaps the folks at microsoft should have thought about what that word really means.

Hmm, maybe they were thinking this way.

Hey, if we make an operating system that wont run anything, and makes it difficult to actually install software, perhaps all the hackers and security people wont try to use it, then the operating system will be secure from actual use by actual people!.

Operating systems that dont work, are rarely unsecure, they simply dont fail because they are never used..

WOW...Why Own Windows
WOW...I dont know why?
Bill..Are you listening?
Wow..Vista..what do you want to do today?..oh Sorry, you cant do that today..

But we will be happy to tell you what you can do..

WAIT, thats right WAIT

Because of a crashed laptop, I had to buy a new one. There is not an option to buy a new XP machine. I had to buy a Vista machine.
I obviously don't know all the tricks and work arounds that I knew for XP/2000/98/ME/97/3.1/2,0/1.0 but in my considered opinion Vista is the worst of the bunch.

So slow on the internet that I thought my new machine was locking up. Solved that by downloading and using Firefox.

My biggest complaint is that it will not recognize my Office XP discs. So I am using Windows Mail and it will not read any of my Outlook backup or transfer files. I can not find a open source software that will. I tried Thunderbird. It appears that I am going to have to type in 20 years of Contacts.

Can't get Windows Mobile Manager to sync with my six month old Dell PDA, says it doesn't recognize it.

I am seriously considering flattening this and loading XP.

I have had much trouble since i installed Windows Vista Ultimate x64 on my computer. I believe i meet the system reqruitments (Asus A8N SLI Deluxe, Xfx 7600GT 256mb GDDR3 PCI-E 2048mb kingston value 400mhz ram AMD Athlon 3700+ 2,2ghz 64bit) The biggest trouble at the moment is that I am unable to innstall any of the drivers on my motherboard driver cd, because "It's not running the same operative system as it's made for". The most anoying thing with Vista is that you have to be an admin to do everything, and you have to press;
Allow, I trust this software" for each time you open a program. And for those of you who wonder buying Vista Ultimate, don't do it, you pay 299$ 3D flip, and some fancy looking Aero graphics.

Don't upgrade to windows, it's missing drivers, and you will find your pc much slower!

"WoW" I've already broken 2 keyboards in frustration! I've wasted 300$ on this crap! And do you know what I've payed for?! This stupid areo thing, who decided to not work on my pc, even though I meet all the system reqruitments!

Vista is pure frustration, and waste of money! Stick to Xp Pro x64!

I have had it with Vista and Dell so called support.. here is a message i left on their board... please be aware this is ridiculous, noone should ever have to experience such nonsense...

I received my new pc not even two weeks ago. During the purchase I was told that there will be no compatibility issues with software that I use. I use my PC to write music and edit sound.
As soon as I plugged the pc in and started, i received numerous error messages. so after installing all the patches, they disappeared - fine. BUT, my sound is choppy, the speed of the pc slowed down to a crawl. I used a Compaq way back when a 233 with 32Mb or ram and it worked better than this one (DIM E520, Intel Pentium D
Processor 915 with Dual Core
Technology(2.8GHz, 800FSB))

So after trying to instal any of my software, I realize that none of it is compatible with Vista. I contacted technical support and after 4hrs of trying, was told that i have to simply reinstall vista format my drive and all my problems will go away... so I did.. lost 150 gigs worth of work, which now i have to dump back onto my pc again! Nothing changed, I was promised a call back, never happened.

Today I called back. I want a copy of XP sent to me. I think after spending that much money on a PC, I should be able to get a different OS if the one that came with it is not compatible with anything that I need it for. First guy told me that he will transfer me to technical support. He put me on hold for 80 minutes, just to find out that he transfered me to a wrong dept. Next "technician" told me that it will be no problem and yet again transfered me; After 40 min on hold a lady answered and when I asked to speak to a supervisor, she assured me that she can assist me with my issue. So yet again I explained my problem and was told in a joking manner ... and i quote "You know Bill Gates has plenty of good lawyers" (??) what the f*ck????!!! All I asked for was to escalate my call!!! I also work at a call center, for a serious international company! If I ever, I mean EVER would have said anything of that nature, I would have been escorted out of my work place and FIRED! Than she proceeded to tell me that - "If you are not satisfied, please send your machine back and we will issue you a refund"
ARE THEY SERIOUS?!?!?!?! I dont have time to sit here and wait for a refund, and than go and get a new PC... besides, this is NOT what I wanted!!! Not even close!!! At this point I am seriously debating sending this machine back. I did not spend this money to have a PC to go online with and check my email, I can do that just fine with the one Ive had. All I want is to downgrade to XP! I already paid for Vista that came installed on this machine.. it is not working, I was mislead to think that it would.. but IT DOESNT!!!

Now I know that eventualy most issues will be resolved... EVENTUALLY does not help me right NOW. If there was a way for me to test drive Vista and figure out if it is fully functional and compatible for what i needed for, it would be a different story, but all I can find on the net are conflicting lists of software that may or may not work with this OS. If it doesnt work.. why can't i get something that would!? I dont think that this is an unreasonable request. What I think IS unreasonable is hiring people to handle customer service, who have absolutely no idea what customer service is.

I am extremely frustrated, after 9 hours on the phone with various reps, I have had it. Believe me when I say that this experience will be well know.

Hope this serves as a warning to all those who are thinking about "upgrading" to Vista. Not for another year or so AT LEAST!

I dont know if anyone from Dell company actually reads these posts, probably not, and if they do than I hope that this gets to the right person. This is not how you treat customers who spend this much money on your products and services.
This is first and LAST time that I will EVER purchase anything from Dell. Not that it matters, I know, especially with all the money that they just saved outsourcing.

Vista seems to be running smooth ad quick on my new hp, But for days now I'm having trouble installing a local printer, Bill gates crew sucks and HP as no clue what to do. and its seems that my son cant connect his wireless camera to the new laptop. what the he-l were they thinking, instead of it being more user friendly they f@$* it up.

WINDOWS VISTA IS A NIGHTMARE!

NEWER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER!

TRUST ME WHEN I SAY I REALLY KNOW MY WAY AROUND A COMPUTER.

USING 2 OF THE EXACT SAME BRAND NEW GATEWAY LAPTOPS FOR MY BUSINESS - (BOTH WITH IDENTICAL SPECS) ONE WITH WINDOWS AND THE OTHER VISTA, THE VISTA HAS MAJOR UNACCEPTABLE SOUND ISSUES, COMPATIBILITY PROBLEMS AND MANY OTHER ISSUES THAT THE WINDOWS XP LATOP DIDN'T.

VISTA IS A MAJOR SYSTEM HOG USING WAY TOO MUCH MEMORY TO RUN IT.
MAKING IT SLOWER THAN THE XP RIGHT OFF THE BAT.

NO LIE IT TOOK ME 48 HOURS JUST TO "SCAN" A FILE WITH VISTA THAT TOOK WINDOWS XP ONLY 8 HOURS. KEEP IN MIND BOTH LAPTOPS HAVE 2 GIGS OF RAM.

VISTA IS VERY CONFUSING.

TO GET TO CONTROL PANEL ICONS IN VISTA, IT TAKES 3 TIMES AS LONG AS XP HAVING TO CLICK THROUGH SO MANY PAGES TO GET TO WHERE YOU WANT TO GO. IT IS VERY ANNOYING AND TIME CONSUMING.

EVERY PROGRAM I INSTALLED HAD TO BE MADE COMPATIBLE WITH WINDOWS XP.
(IT WAS NOT FUN AT ALL)

I GOT ENDLESS SECURITY AND OTHER WARNING POP UPS UNTIL I DISABLED UAC.

THERE ARE ALMOST NO SOUND OPTIONS AND CHOICES IN VISTA. (AND WHO KNOWS WHAT OTHER OPTIONS)

THERE ARE MANY OTHER BAD THINGS I COULD POST ABOUT VISTA BUT LONG POSTS DON'T GET READ.

I HAVE SEEN NO BENEFITS AT ALL FROM VISTA, ONLY HEADACHE AND A MAJOR WASTE OF TIME.

TRUST ME WHEN I SAY, THE WORLD IS NOT READY FOR V