Print - How Do People Hate Vista? Let Me Count the Ways…

Last month, in my commentary "Why, Exactly, Does Everyone ‘Hate' Vista?", I enumerated a few reasons that I thought might explain people's disdain toward the new OS, and I asked for your thoughts on the matter. Many thanks to all of you who shared your Windows Vista stories with me! Here's a far-too-short (I've only got so much space per month!) distillation of your comments and some thoughts of my own.

"Vista has a different UI than does Windows XP, and it seems not to offer much of anything worth upgrading over." I'm not surprised to hear this argument from many people. As I've observed before, computer technology isn't changing as quickly as it used to, and every new version of Windows will probably offer fewer new things. XP is a very nice OS, and if we'd not seen anything new between 2001 and the 2012 arrival of Windows 7 (the current name for Vista's 2012 replacement), the world would keep turning, our businesses would keep running, and we'd all be fine. But I still don't understand why that justifies hating Vista. As I recall, users expressed a lot of vituperation about how XP's UI was so much "harder to understand" than Windows 2000's UI.

"Vista is slower than XP." The same could be said about virtually every OS when compared to an older one. Vista is intended to be Microsoft's desktop OS offering for the next five years or so, so it anticipates ever-faster machines--just as XP did when it was first released. The fact that computer hardware gets a bit faster every year is why XP seems zippy now but was derided as a dog by many when it first arrived. When Windows 7 comes around, it'll seem slow in comparison with Vista on 2012 hardware. Every new OS has this characteristic, so--again--why does it engender the "hate" that I've heard from readers?

"Vista's requirement for activation is annoying." I hate to say it, but, I told you so! When product activation arrived with XP, I understood its purpose--it's a copy-protection scheme that protects Microsoft's market revenues. As someone who makes his living from copyrighted materials, I chafe at every stolen copy of my stuff. But would I force every one of my readers to call me up and "validate" every one of my books that they've purchased before they could read them? Of course not; that would be obnoxious and irritating. But, as I argued back in 2001, Microsoft can do this to its customers for one reason and one reason only: It's a monopoly. Forcing us to deal with product activation was an abuse of monopoly power then, and it's one now.

Microsoft knew that it didn't have the power to make its large customers swallow product activation, so Redmond let volume customers essentially bypass activation. This, I argued, was a divide-and-conquer tactic, and I predicted that the next version of Windows would require activation for volume customers. I was right, but only partially so. Volume customers have to install something called a Key Management Server (KMS) system that does a sort of "pretend validation." The volume customer's KMS does for that customer's copies of Vista what Microsoft's product activation servers do for retail copies of XP and Vista: essentially "blessing" the copy of Windows to run for some period of time. Furthermore, the KMS server doesn't even really keep track of which systems it has activated nor of how many. So, what good is the system then? My guess is that Microsoft is slowly "setting the hook" in the mouths of volume customers, paving the way for a day--Windows 7? Windows 8?--when volume customers must host their own onsite Microsoft activation server.

So heck, if you want to hate Vista for its activation policies for volume customers, then go ahead and hate it. But remember that XP is really what you should find unacceptable, as it first forced that annoyance upon millions of home and small business users.

Meanwhile, I've found my own reason to chafe at Vista: Its increasingly frequent automatic updates. XP and the like seem only to get one bunch of security updates on Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month. But hardly do three days go by without Vista nudging me to reboot it so that it can install Windows Defender updates. Defender needs to reboot to update its pattern files? Gimme a break.

Please keep sending me your Vista stories, and thanks!

Maybe people hate Vista because they just do, is it really that hard to comprehend?

Re: The changed Vista: Uunless there is an overwhelming reason to change something, don't. If you change things just to be different, you will only be upsetting those who know the old ways. Re: New OSs are always slower: Wrong. Each new release of Mac OS X is faster than the previous. Apple is tightening the code rather than just rewriting it new. Re: Activation: There is no activation necessary to use each new version. Apple promotes this by selling the 'Ultimate' version as a family pack of 5 installs for less than $200.

Another perspective: I've just opened and set up a new PC for my daughter. The HP Pavillion had 6 stickers on the key pad area. There were 18 icons on the desktop for sales of Dial Up, Internet Access, AOL, AntiVirus, etc. There was lousy trials of most everything that one could ever imagine. As for Vista specifically, there is now a Yahoo Search in the Task Bar, There is now an HP logo in the Task Bar. I have been unable to determine how to get rid of this forced stuff and on XP, either it was not possible for Mfrs to so easily do this stuff or else it was easily removed. I don't mind a Search in the Task Bar but I don't want Yahoo. I can find no where to change the Search engine. I did already have to remove the Yahoo toolbar in my IE. And I too had to remove the AOL home page. While all of this may not directly be Vista, do note that this is my un fun experience with the new Vista on the new computer. My only feeling is that if I was to install XP on this computer, I wouldn't have all of these issues or problems. The 1st impression is everything. The typical experience of the new PC user is just not fun but instead having to wade through all of the marketing sh.t that exists. Good thing that my Macs don't have a single sticker or piece of crapware installed or trials on the desktop.

rameeti1: Blaming Vista for the HP marketing deals and the additoinal "Features" they install is not fair. If you bought a preloaded XP from HP, you would get the same "features" Mark: I never have to reboot after defender updates. Sure it annoys me that Defender uses Windows update to update, instead of doing it "in program", but that is another issue.

Re: New OSs are always slower: Wrong. When you buy a new car, does it make sense that it is slower than your existing one? The new seats might be a nicer leather and the new paint job might look snazzier, but its main purpose is to get you from A to B. If it does this slower, then the car has been engineered poorly. You have purchased a lemon. If the OS is slower, gut it to fix it. Don't wait/pay for a new engine to make it look as fast as the old one. Security is important, but DRM is not. Written on a Vista computer (for support purposes).

Hey MAC guys, the world is NOT switching to MACs. While they make a nice system it simply isn't ever going to have the market space to compete. Funny too how the ads on TV say that the MACs never have any problems. Why is it that there are so many patches and updates for MACs now. Hey nice rollout of the new OS too, bringing with it problems they had solved in the past but forgotten to update on the new release. I am no real fan of Vista, I still prefer XP Professional to Vista however I am sure Microsoft will continue tweaking Vista and as more companies migrate more users will buy into it. Sorry MAC guys but there's no way we're moving the enterprise to MACs.

The argument that Windows XP had the same issues and what people are calling out in Windows Vista isn't very good argument. Many large businesses, including my health provider, are still using Windows 2000. It does everything they need and they can buy the slowest computer out there and it runs just fine. I don't see Windows Vista being the motivation for these companies to move from Windows 2000 as well. My big question is what are these companies going to do when Microsoft ends all support for Windows 2000. That is currently down as July 13, 2010.

Microsoft did not have to hide/change/rename everything I use for troubleshooting. I have found the run button, the new add/remove programs, and added printers back to my start menu. I cannot figure out how to get my dial up connections to show up without opening a window or how to get separate network icons to show up on the taskbar. I do however like the reliability monitor.

I'm more curious why people don't hate Vista. I had no vendor option but Vista for daughter's laptop. Okay, I'll give it a try. Try to change workgroup name for local file sharing? Impossible - don't remember how I finally did it. Wanted to setup printing to parallel port on router. No Vista version. XP/2K version installed but I couldn't test it -why? - because there was no Vista driver for the HP printer. Download XP driver. It uncompressed into a hidden folder. Great. Now I've got to figure out how to see hidden folders in Vista - then hope the driver works.

Two comments. First, on having to activate Vista, this is simply due to the number of pirated copies out there that cost Microsoft millions. You make think they make billions so they can afford it, but that's not the point. You try losing $20 a month to thieves and pretty soon you'll want to do something to stop it. Second, Vista like all OS's needs time to mature. Sure, it has a number of issues that will need to be resolved. But so did every other OS out there.

Everything mentioned so far is minor IMHO. I'm an old time Microsoft user since DOS 2.0 days. I know how to tweak a system to get the best performance out of it and I've build every single computer I've ever owned (far too many to count). Yet my experience with Vista was horrid; I gave it 2 months before I realized it would just simply be faster to fdisk and install XP instead so I could actually get stuff done. Two examples of Vista hell: Try and configure _outbound_ firewall rules with the Vista firewall. Go ahead, I'll wait a few days and see if there is any hair left on your head. Photoshop CS3, unable to load contiguous memory error messages. This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Ran memtest86+ for 3 days straight, no memory issues. 2GB system memory installed. PS was the only application running that _I_ started. Vista's new memory management implementation isn't quite ready for prime time. Once I replaced Vista with XP on the same PC, I ran the same filter on the same image in PS without any issues. All other PS edit operations ran faster when I was using XP as the O/S. I could go on and on about Vista's horrid UI usability defects or how sluggish it is or the poor non-priveleged user account implementation, but I think you've heard all that already. Work will always be a Microsoft shop, but at home where I vote with my money, I've already bought one mac; possibly more soon. I'm no apple fan boy, only a recent switcher who has better things to do with their time than fighting a kludgy O/S. I just want my computer to let me get my stuff done, that's not too much to ask for, right?

I've been on every Windows version since Windows 3.1, including the beta for NT 3.0, etc. My experience of Vista is not "Slow", but "sluggish". Kind of like a sleepy and uncooperative child at 7 in the morning. You wonder what's going on in there. It's one thing to take some more resources, but throwing sludge in the system gives a very bad perception, particularly when there are few compelling features added. MS just messed up too many things (network copy speed abysmal, offline files broken half the time, an inefficient search indexer), and gave few good things to justify it. Perhaps SP1 will fix it, but it may take till Vista R2 to get the bugs worked out.

Purchased Vista for a laptop. Installed it ran a little slow. Upgraded to a faster larger hard drive and more memory. Vista wants to reactivate. Called Microsoft and they say sure that will be $60 please. Put in XP disk, deleted Vista, installed XP and haven't looked back. Next laptop will be a Mac.

As far as I can deduct, Mark doesn't deny the first two 'hate' reasons: 1) different UI but no real difference with XP and 2) slowness (sorry, I meant 'computationally more demanding'!). Now sum them up: not offering anything new + slower. Result = not worth upgrading. Companies don't care about flashy UIs, cunning new ways of organising your MP3s or photos, or dissolving FX. All they want is to get their job done, and on Vista the least they'll have to consider is changing their existing HW. And bugs...oh yeah: just check this one out: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=829 and as far as I know, it won't even get a fix in SP1. When Win2K came out it was just brilliant; a huge OS which offered even huge-er advantages. XP even managed to surpass that by miles: slightly bigger but offering yet more (and I am not referring to gamers, home users and such). A year goes by and businesses just don't dig it: why should I upgrade to an OS which is DEFINITELY SLOWER but doesn't offer anything new and contiues to have major compatibility issues with existing SW?

Running it at home on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ with 2GB RAM + 1GB ReadyBoost and it's fine, no problems, plays games (e.g. Half Life 2 EP2/Portal & Bioshock) and runs Office 2003 with no issues at all. Just works, same as XP did, but a few extra features. At work on an HP machine with 3GHz hypertheaded P4 and 1.5GB RAM also no problems apart from slow network file copy, but that's down to McAfee antivirus and is well known (though no fix yet apart from switch to different antivirus). Yes some stuff is in different places, but this always happens, get over it. It's new, if you don't like "new", tough, the industrial revolution happened.

Vista definitely has has its pro's and con's. If you plan on doing any networking, good luck. My company purchased new Dell laptops with Vista Home Premium thinking we'd be able to join the domain. Not so. Ended up purchasing Vista Business Upgrades thinking we could "upgrade" our versions of Home Premium. Again not the case. You can only upgrade to Vista Ultimate. After the initial setup and tweaking, Vista is actually quite nice. My company has some computer illiterate users and they seem to enjoy using it and have no problems. Driver support is excellent. No need to download and install any drivers from Dell. One other pain is the use of LAN and wireless connections. For some reason, Vista always seems to default to the slower wireless instead of the faster LAN connection when both adapters are in use. As problematic as Vista can be, in the end, it is a decent OS.

It's funny how when I look at these comments I can remember the same being said for XP. But coming from Windows 98SE to XP was a godsend. Windows 2000 is faster than XP but not as user friendly (for your basic user). Now Vista which is a new OS not a tightened revamped version comes out everyone says hate. I've been using it now since it was first released and I took the worst possible route of an inplace upgrade of an old home built PC and yes I ran into all of the software/driver nightmares and the annoying popups anytime I wanted to do an administrative level task. But aside from the newness annoyances it's been pretty darn stable for me. Am I a fan, no not really 100% but as a consultant I have to adapt, learn, and have a lot of patience which is why I haven't uninstalled it. What I am curious about is seeing how Vista matures over the time. As far as the MAC I can honestly state that I am seeing more and more MACs being purchased for home and business use. And No I am defintely not a MAC fan I could complain about some MAC quirks that I have run into with my wife's MAC but that is another post.

"Vista is slower than XP." In my opinion, 2000 is slower than XP. I was expecting Vista to be faster than XP. My new quad core machine with Vista is slower than my P IV machine with XP.

I had to install VISTA on our new computers here at school along with Office 2007 (another horror story), in addition to having an XP partition for the "Windows" class.. We are running the "Business" version and the main problems I see are the UAC (User Access Control) -- does it need to be turned on or off-- it seems to differ for each problem experienced; and the fact that Microsoft has determined that the print spooler failing when you try to connect a network printer to it at logon time, is a "minor thing" and a fix can be held up until "service pack" time. Having to rebot the computer 2 or 3 times until the spooler does NOT fail is more than a pain. Why do you have to reboot? you may ask. Because Microsoft has decided that one must be an Administrator to restart the Print Spooler service. Would you want students logging on as Administrators?

When XP Pro came out, I actually used one of the release candidates on my main company machine - that's how much better it was at release than anything MS had done previously. Not so with Vista. I waited for the final release, bought a new laptop with Vista on it, and while I see some benefits, it is certainly not miles ahead of XP like XP was to 9x or 2000. In fact, one major bug I've run into (i.e. the laptop will essentially sit 5+ minutes with hard drive thrashing when coming out of hibernate or switching from power/battery mode) has seriously caused me to think about switching back to XP. Anyway, no Vista for our company until at least SP1 comes out - maybe even longer than that.

Lots of problems with various Vista drivers, some of them really annoying. For instance a paper jam in the printer can't be resolved normally. The printer will stay in offline status. When you turn the printer offline, the status is offline - offline. You get the other offline away, when you turn the printer online, but there is no other way to get it online than reboot. Also, different software applications seem to fight for the same components. One application provides its own content for a component and the other application won't work with it. Vista seems to be stable, though.

It seems to me that one of MS's underhanded tactics for forcing people to upgrade--the "end of support" date--is totally ineffective. Through all the hundreds of problems I've fixed on my Windows machines (Back to 95) have never once actually spoken to someone at MS. Their support doesn't exist right now, as far as I'm concerned, so what does it matter which arbitrary date they declare a product to be at its end of life?

The thing about Vista is that it's worse than XP in just about every regard, so the tradeoffs you mention aren't offset by any gain. It's slower, needs more resources, has a more annoying interface, is much less stable, is buggier. It's more expensive, it's fussier about activation, backup is now useless. Most of the new features don't work very well. UAC is unusable. Sleep mode still doesn't work reliably. The new search feature isn't well thought out. About the only thing I can find to like about it is the new look -- and that's hardly worth making my quad core RAID 0 screamer run slower than my six year old Pentium IV XP machines. I've been struggling with Vista ever since it was a release candidate. SP 1 turns it into the equivalent of a beta; before that, it behaved like an alpha, with fatal errors that made it unusable in a production environment. How dare MS charge me an arm and a leg for something they pushed out the door prematurely because they were under pressure to ship? Every MS upgrade I've installed in the past has offered something worthwhile. Sure, they were slower and used more resources, but I always got something valuable in return -- proportional fonts, multithreading, memory protection, plug and play, system restore, what have you. Now, I'm actually going to downgrade Vista to XP. I'm far from the only person who has done that.