Thread: Windows Vista--Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Okay...this is perfect....just freakin' PERFECT....after posting the above response, I was in the process of entering a more thoughtful, insightful and thouroughly entertaining (if I do say so myself) response...I was working on my fourth paragraph, when my Windows XP locked up. blinked twice and REBOOTED...all of my hard work, my inspiration, my furthereance of the world's body of knowledge with regards to Windows....gone.....poof!...AAARRRRGH!!!!!

So, for the benefit of all my friends here at SRP and the world at large, I shall TRY to reconstruct the posting, but be forewarned.....technical/informative/creative writing is a lot like sex, in that, once interrupted, it's difficult to pick up where you left off and get going again....(actually, in reflecting upon it, sex isn't like that at ALL....restarts take, what?...nano-seconds????)...anyhoo, try to keep up...
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It all started on Sunday...the modem in my Dad's Windows '98 laptop finally gave up the ghost, and, with Father's Day peeking over the horizon, Mom said "Just go get a new laptop, and we'll call it your Father's Day present". She gave him a budget of $1000.

So, being a man wise beyond his (considerable) years, he called me to ask for advice (yeah, I know....I couldn't believe it either!). I unloaded with both barrels...told him EXACTLY what I thought of anything Windows, and strongly recommended a Mac laptop (which would give ME the opportunity to get some 'hands-on' Mac time). So I did a little research, and the closest place that carried Macs was BestBuy in a town (Coeur d'Alene) about 45 minutes away. The cheapest one was $1100...hmmmm, a little over the budge, but hey, what isn't right? Plus, it was Mom's money we were spending, anyway.

So, Monday after work, the old boy picked me up and off we went on a technology field trip.

Our first stop was at a Radio Shack so Dad could pick up an amplified telephone for Mom...while he was paying for the phone, I went over and browsed their (rather limited) display of laptops...and there, on the top of the heap, was a Compaq laptop....$549. Good Grief...a lbrand new laptop computer for $550!!! Since the only one they had left was a display model, they said they would give us an extra year of warranty....

...as much as I hate Windows, I just couldn't bring myself to recommend that he/she spend an extra $550 (ie TWICE the price) to go with a Mac. Dad forked over the dough, and we marched home with a laptop loaded with Vista....I haven't had a chance to play with it, but I'm pretty sure, it will probably suck too, but hey!....we saved Mom $550.

Actually, the ONLY thing that Dad does is cruise the financial sites on the internet...no applications....he occassionally prints up a page or two, does a little email and saves pictures of the grandkids, but that's about it....so he's probably safe there...but, damn, I sure would have liked the opportunity to play with a Mac!

I'll check out the Vista and get back and let you know just how MUCH it sucks...but, be assured, suck it shall!

-whatever

-Lou

Lou,

Hilarious--thanks for adding your insights. I think I can honestly say that in five years of using XP, I can't remember ever having my computer lock up or shut down. Individual programs, like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, yes. Quark XPress--heavens, yes.

Maybe it's your hardware that sucks.

Josh

maybe it's my....dare I say it....computer skills that suck....







....naaaaaaah!!!...it's WINDOWS...

-whatever

-Lou

The jury is still out on Vista.
I use Vista64 ultimate at home. It is great for things like surfing, mailing, working with Office2007 and things like that.

But for development I still prefer XP because Visual Studio does not run natively in 64 bit mode. That will be for the next release.

The reason that corporations and small store owners don't like Vista is that a lot of the legacy software they use does not run on it, but that does not mean Vista is bad.

Hi, I'm a Mac.

My biggest gripe about Windows, apart from the general suckiness of how it does things in the background and that you have to REBOOT ever time you install system upgrades and certain software and that it has more holes than a swiss cheese and that it's bloated beyond belief, is the way applications can make things go tits up. I mean, sure, I've had applications crash under X-Windows on Linux, but then the application disappears and you get a core dump file you have to delete, but nothing else happens. On Windows, an application crashing can kill other applications, and can even bring up the Blue Screen Of Death, or in some instances even reboot the computer without telling you there was a problem. Not very user friendly, IMHO.

Having said that, Windows wins hands down if you look at hardware support. Plug a new piece of consumer hardware into it, and it usually works. It may be annoying to wait while Windows installs the hardware drivers (with rebooting occurring now and then) to get it to work, but at least it works. With Linux you have to tweak the system by hand much of the time, install half-assed home cooked drivers, and pray to Linus Torvalds that it will work, and even then you might have to besiege some haughty Linux gurus online and nag them into revealing the arcane secret switches you didn't know existed and didn't know you had to supply to the driver in order to get things to work properly.

OTOH, when some hardware doesn't work on Windows, it's usually close to impossible to coax the system into making it work, for a layman...

I still run Windows 98SE on one of my computers, and Windows XP Home on my laptop, mainly because I have more programs for Windows, and because most computer games I own are for Windows.

I only have experience with pre OS X Macs, so I can't say anything about the new Macs. I never liked the pre OS X Mac operating systems, though. Whenever I sat down with a Mac, I would usually get the "bomb" popping up and have to reboot the computer, losing work...

Just my 2 cents.

/Nicholas

Edit: Oh, and regarding the original post: Windows Vista... I've heard that some software that works under Windows XP won't work on Windows Vista, so unless you are going to buy all software new and "Vista proof", you probably should stick with XP.

I'm not going to highjack Josh's thread....I'm not going to highjack Josh's thread.....
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Bugger it! Grow some grunions, men, and use Linux!!



(So that's for Vista from me, BTW)

James.

My experienced knowledge would tell you all to leave Vista for another year until hardware has caught up i.e. price and bang for your buck. It's too expensive to run Vista well enough yet but in a years time when hardware will be cheaper, you will be able to upgrade ram for next to nothing which will run is easier. This delay will also provide time for software to become fully compatible aswell.

Vista has a function which enables it to use a 'pen-drive' (removeable memory stick or usb pen) as extra memory. Handy if your machine is struggling.

I build PC's, semi-pro online game, work in IT for a living and I wont be going near Vista for another 12months minimum.

You can make the choice ;-)

Ok before I start, I will say that I am a systems programmer with 10 years of experience on both Windows and Linux

Originally Posted by minstrel

My biggest gripe about Windows, apart from the general suckiness of how it does things in the background and that you have to REBOOT ever time you install system upgrades and certain software and that it has more holes than a swiss cheese and that it's bloated beyond belief, is the way applications can make things go tits up.

While you do (often) have to restart for system updates, it can usually be deferred by clicking 'later'. I shutdown my pc every night. Big deal.

More holes than swiss cheese? If the firewall is enabled, nothing gets in.
The major cause of virus infection and worms are still naive / uncaring users who click everything they get via mail or downloads.

Originally Posted by minstrel

I mean, sure, I've had applications crash under X-Windows on Linux, but then the application disappears and you get a core dump file you have to delete, but nothing else happens. On Windows, an application crashing can kill other applications, and can even bring up the Blue Screen Of Death, or in some instances even reboot the computer without telling you there was a problem. Not very user friendly, IMHO.

Applications cannot ever bring on the blue screen of death. only kernel components can. an app crash does not cause a reboot either.
Applications can crash, but they won't take others with them. each app runs in its own memory space.
What you said was true for windows 98 and windows Me. all other versions of winows that grew out of the NT family has not had this problems.
The only blue screens I experienced in the last 5 years were caused by crappy device drivers, and a couple of times failing hardware.
dead hardware will cause any consumer system to crash. Analysis has shown that 3d party drivers and bad hardware in total cause > 80 % of all system failures.

Originally Posted by minstrel

Having said that, Windows wins hands down if you look at hardware support. Plug a new piece of consumer hardware into it, and it usually works. It may be annoying to wait while Windows installs the hardware drivers (with rebooting occurring now and then) to get it to work, but at least it works. With Linux you have to tweak the system by hand much of the time, install half-assed home cooked drivers, and pray to Linus Torvalds that it will work, and even then you might have to besiege some haughty Linux gurus online and nag them into revealing the arcane secret switches you didn't know existed and didn't know you had to supply to the driver in order to get things to work properly.

Linux has it's good points, though it is decidely not user friendly. there are basically 2 ways to get someone to answer your questions:
1) grovel, and complain how you really would like to use this perfect system called linux, if only you could get X to work.
2) post an angry message, saying that linux is stupid because it can't do X. then you will quickly get 3 ways to do X.

what annoys me about linux is that there are no stable releases, there is no system level design documentation that is written down somewhere, documentation is usually out of date and hardly any component has a design phase BEFORE it gets coded. This leads to such things as the whole USB subsystem being ripped out and recoded 3 times with totally incompatible new susbsytems.

Originally Posted by minstrel

OTOH, when some hardware doesn't work on Windows, it's usually close to impossible to coax the system into making it work, for a layman...

The same goes for linux. if your hardware is not supported right out of the box, or with a simple recompile, it is close to impossible to get it to work unless you are a C or C++ programmer.

Originally Posted by minstrel

Edit: Oh, and regarding the original post: Windows Vista... I've heard that some software that works under Windows XP won't work on Windows Vista, so unless you are going to buy all software new and "Vista proof", you probably should stick with XP.

Let me tell you this as a programmer: The design principles that were guidelines under XP are now enforced rules under Vista.
With XP, programs are free to leave files pretty much anywhere, and even default users have read/write access in the program files directory
Microsoft gets flack for delivering an OS that is not compatible with its predecessor, yet at the same time they would get flack if it would not be more secure.
Linux is incompatible even between point releases and minor updates.
But that is all water under the bridge. Check up-front if your software runs on Vista. If it doesn't, stick with XP.

I hope this post did not come off as hostile, but a lot of people seem to think that linux is so much better than windows. It isn't.
Well, it is, for a given value of better. Better usually being philosophical or political reasons.

Quality wise, the BSDs like FreeBSD or OpenBSD are much more polished and generally much more stable than Linux. They are designed up front and come with accurate documentation and how-tos.
But of course, they don't use the GPL license so they are shunned by the fanboys and the 'cool' crowd.

Originally Posted by Bruno

...The reason that corporations and small store owners don't like Vista is that a lot of the legacy software they use does not run on it, but that does not mean Vista is bad.

Yes it does.

-whatever

-Lou