Vista lies, damn lies, and lies
- September 29th, 2008
- 11 Comments
I sadly missed this story last week but it bears further inspection. Charlie “The Animal” White wrote a piece “fact-checking” the claims that Vista is buggy, slow, and a big hassle. While I cannot agree that Vista is a sub par offering from Microsoft, I can unequivocally state that it’s good enough for the average user and no matter how much we whine and cry we’re all going to ride the Vista train when we pick our next PCs and laptops anyway, so why bitch? Take this bit of knowledge on Vista crashing:
This one is pure propaganda. In our experience, the only crash we’ve experienced happened when we installed the new version 8.0 of iTunes (how ironic!), and even that didn’t result in the dreaded Blue Screen of Death — just a hard lockup that required a cold boot. System Restore blew out the problem, bringing everything back to normal in minutes.
Sadly, crashing is subjective. Charlie probably has some nice hardware at home and Joe Sixpack in Sixpackton, Wisconsin (next to Madison) is probably still using an on Dell he bought in 2005. Old tech for some is “good enough” for others.
Microsoft isn’t stupid. It’s slow, but not stupid. They know that they can dump bloatware onto the market because it drives upgrades and hardware sales. Without hardware, Vista is just a very boring DVD.
I know working with Vista extensively is a pain in the ass. Doug complains about it all the time and I prefer to install XP Pro on any test machines I’m using just to ensure a baseline. However, Vista is here and it’s not going anywhere. We must accept our fate and/or move on - to Linux, OS X, and points beyond. Excelsior!
thebonafortuna (Who am I?)
2 months ago
I said it in a previous post, and I’ll say it again. Vista isn’t as bad as it used to be. Once you disable UAC, anyways.
I tried it a year ago and hated it. Tried it again a few weeks ago, and found it to be a surprisingly pleasant experience. Had a mouse driver issue, but other than that, it worked fine.
John Biggs (Who am I?)
2 months ago
A mouse driver issue? That’s like a car having a steering wheel issue. I think that kind of helps us understand the general malaise.
thebonafortuna (Who am I?)
2 months ago
Definitely. Its a stupid problem. But is that Microsoft’s fault? I mean, I guess it is to an extent, and its a stupid problem that frankly shouldn’t be an issue. But some, perhaps most, of the fault lies with Kensington for not bringing all their drivers up to date.
That was honestly the only mouse I tried, and it is a few year’s old. I don’t know how widespread the issue is. Since I tend to stick to Kensington mice, I hope its not an issue for lots of their stuff, since I plan on finally upgrading my notebook soon.
Otherwise, the Vista experience was a pleasant one. I didn’t hit it too hard testing, but it seemed fine for all the simple things. And iTunes, Ad-aware, and Firefox all ran fine on it. And certain things, like internet Outlook support, were much improved (not that that means much - I’m pretty sure I could code a better interface than they used in XP).
Arnaldo (Who am I?)
2 months ago
LOL Mouse drive! that whats Vista its all about, problems
Winklereed (Who am I?)
2 months ago
Vista is excellent: not a single problem in the 18 months I have used it! I wonder what you are doing to it, John ….
Paul G (Who am I?)
2 months ago
Vista is not so bad once you turn off all the things that make it Vista - UAC and Aero.
The biggest problem with Vista is that the spec required to run it is much higher than what the average PC person owns. Turning off those features, gets you to something close to well XP.
Arnaldo (Who am I?)
2 months ago
You turn that off, what do you have??? Windows XP?? why upgrade then, vista is a bad os, try using Leopard for once or Ubuntu @ least
Michael (Who am I?)
2 months ago
Vista sucks, thats why Im using Mojave now. Way way better!
Brendan (Who am I?)
2 months ago
Just throwing this out there, but people complained about XP being a resource hog when it first came out. Now they love it forever.
tommy (Who am I?)
2 months ago
The Federal Government has not qualified Vista to be used or purchased by government employees or facilities. Cost and Reliability.
Arnaldo (Who am I?)
2 months ago
We all be riding Vista?? Think it twice! I guess Windows is the only OS a PC can run!! What about linux? What about buying a mac? Vista sucks thats why the US Army Servers changed to mac! US ARMY sucks too but that an important data there because they get so many attacks