So I tried a new OS today.

[Oxygen]

I've always been a critic of Windows Vista, but I try to be balanced and fair... so I tried it today. I knew when I tried, it'd run slow, I have an old computer so I gave it the benefit of the doubt when the installer took about 5 minutes just to pop up... Anyway with that done, I went through the installer steps, fairly sluggish, I remember there was always a pause after I pressed any buttons or opened any menus or even rolled over menu selections. That said, the actual install took about half an hour, more than an install of Ubuntu, less than an install of XP.

Once installed, it had commondeered my MBR, I wanted to put Grub back on but I was too anxious to try my new Vista install. Anyway, rebooted, got Vista up, it took a few minutes to start up and log me in, more than XP and cirtainly more than Ubuntu. I then logged in. At this point I have got to give it to Microsoft, it does look pretty, but because I didn't have my GFX driver installed, the aero transparency thing didn't work. Not to worry though.

Next thing I went about doing was installing drivers. Now I had to get my wireless working, and I did. I didn't have Vista drivers but the XP drivers installed and worked fine and i didn't even need to reboot. This was when I first noticed slow down. The connection speed (Usually 11Mb/s) was down to about 8Mb/s. Not too much of a problem (broadband speed is only 2Mb/s anyway). Now I had to install everything else! My soundcard wasn't detected, even when I tried installing the drivers it said it wasn't there and refused to install. So my new Vista install had no sound! Oh dear... at least I can still have some graphics right? Wrong! My graphics card didn't have a Vista driver available, the XP driver refused to install because it thought I wasn't running Windows. What a pity!

Now that wasn't as simple as it sounds, I'd say I came into contact with about 7 Windows security prompts saying things like "This program could harm your system" and "This program may be a virus... cancel or allow." I felt so secure knowning my computer was currently being protected by a series of questions that would make any hacking attempt go ary because he'd be clicking "Allow" so many times that he'd get carpel tunnel syndrome. I'd say it was justice at it's best. Huzzaz!

Now, I was gona try MSN Messenger. The install was so slow... and for some reason IE7 didn't want to display the download page (Had to get it straight from the MS download centre) and for some reason... IT NEEDED A REBOOT TO WORK! Not a huge problem, went into the new start menu which for the record is neither nicer or easier to use, instead of context menus there's now expandable folders. Anyway saw the power button, pressed it and in 3 seconds flat BAM! Shutdown. I was very impressed, until I pressed the power button, I saw the logic screen almost instantly and a little poppup saying it's emerged from hibernation... Terrific! The default shutdown option is to make my computer unusable. Went back into start menu and found the little side button that allowed me to shutdown... it didn't shutdown in 3 seconds flat, infact it took twice as long as XP did. With that done, booted back up, logged in and it was there. I was greeted by more "Cancel or Allow" boxes saying MSN had commited an immortal sin by wanting to connect to the internet. I was getting quite tired of this.

In my opinion, the problem with Vista is just the way information is layed out, in menus there's few icons next to buttons, mostly just text. And they've placed alot of useless text in the control panel describing what everything does and help. Those should be seperate. For example if I want to change my background wallpaper. Right click and in a list of 6 there's one for it. The text isn't highlighted or made bigger. It's just like it is. Then I get a page about the background. It's better in XP because there's tabs along the top. I can change the background, screen resolution and screensaver in one go. But I have to change them all seperately in Vista.

So what had I accomplished? Well I liked the Mac O... I mean Vista chess game, that kept me busy, MSN Live Messenger was laggy and unuseable, I had no sound, I had an OS that sprayed too much information in my face when I press a button to do with settings.

So I came back, popped in my live CD, restored grub. Not a problem.

Generally it's a good attempt, but it's too graphicly dependent. The buttons aren't layed out in an easy to use way, some windows, particually IE7, don't have the File Edit View bar across the top as a central collection of tools and options, which means you have to search the rest of the app to find it. All I wanted to do was search the page for a word.

I can say though, I was very releived when I was back in Linux, I opened QT Parted and deleted the Vista partition. I was happy it just worked. I was also happy not to have to go through Vista security...

"...Cancel or Allow"

[MikeTbob]

You are posting on an open forum> Cancel or Allow!?
Good to hear feedback on Vista.

[easuter]

"Cancel or Allow" is apparenty not the only annoying thing in Vista. Try burning a CD with Vista's burner:

Groklaw - Burning Issues With Vista, by Richard Rasker

[Oxygen]

In fairness, it supported my USB2 hub, which XP never did. But the best description for it is simply this: A fancy theme for XP.

[Roxoff]

Well when I installed my newly-rebuild computers four weeks ago (for me and the missus), we needed a 'Windows' OS for all the things that Linux wouldn't do, that is play certain games that dont work from Cedega. Needless to say, we plumped for Windows XP, which only took 2 days to install if you include all the security updates, service packs and other 'fixes' supplied by Microsoft.

And to this day, my missus still hasn't booted ut up...

[cheesecake42]

the only good thing i have to say about vista is the fact that it detected my onboard ethernet connection right off the bat (xp never did). Other than that vista sucks some ass.

[budman7]

When I bought my dv6000 laptop, it had Vista Premium on it.
I didn't think it was all that bad until, I decided to use Disk Management.
I wanted to delete a partition and make it free space to install another distro on, but when I looked at them, I didn't think they were presented in the correct order, and I didn't want to delete the wrong one, so I closed Disk Management and went to boot into Sabayon, but when I rebooted all of my partitions were gone.
I guess this machine wasn't meant to have Vista after all.

[techieMoe]

When I bought my dv6000 laptop, it had Vista Premium on it.

This brings up a point of confusion for me (and I imagine I'm not the only one). What the difference between Vista "Premium" and Vista "Ultimate"?

Off-topic side note:: Does anyone else get videogame deja vu with Vista compared to the Street Fighter games? Like "Windows Vista Alpha 2 Turbo Extreme Ultra Tournament Edition"?

[zba78]

This brings up a point of confusion for me (and I imagine I'm not the only one). What the difference between Vista "Premium" and Vista "Ultimate"?

Off-topic side note:: Does anyone else get videogame deja vu with Vista compared to the Street Fighter games? Like "Windows Vista Alpha 2 Turbo Extreme Ultra Tournament Edition"?

Not much really. Just a few things

[carlosponti]

ultimate collectors tin available with a pre-paid postage


i just want to say that recently i was asked to help with a hard drive that was corrupted to recover some files off it. i used Ubuntu as a live disk and pulled the files off, albeit slowly, but there they were. windows stated that it couldn't and that the drive was corrupted. which brings me to my point probably the reason xp failed where Linux succeeded is because Microsoft isn't trying to sell you extra features that should be built-in in the first place. the different versions of windows vista its the same thing. you want to look at pictures well...you cant unless you buy a fancier version for twice the price!