Nonsnse. I have two perfectly good scanners sitting here on the shelf that would not run with vista. From what I've been reading about windows 7 and the "XP mode" (read virtualization) it doesn't sound much better in that regard.
My brother, against my advice, upgraded his entire office one weekend and regretted it within two hours of opening the following Monday morning.
In an odd sort of way he got lucky. A few weeks later someone broke in and stole every piece of computer equipment what wasn't nailed down. Once he got the OK from the insurance company he called Dell and order all new equipment with XP installed, not vista.
Personally, I only know ONE person who has installed vista and liked it.

I don't know how things are right now, but I can tell you that at the moment that Vista came out into scene, it required a nonsensical high end hardware just to run a web browser, let alone gaming. Out of the box, xp performed better in every single case I tested it. And, if a big percentage of people started downgrading machines that came with Vista OEM, then *maybe* there's a reason behind that.

With independence of OEM packagers not having a clue on what they were doing, the kind of hardware required at that moment required to run it was simply ridiculous. Can you make it perform better? I don't know. But the average windows user doesn't care about arcane magic, they just want the thing to work, and want it now.

That's why Vista's birth was so painful.

About the drivers, well, certainly for old devices I have no doubt that you will have problems. But at least with OEM boxes that shouldn't be an issue.

Though you're right about the virtualization, Windows 7 blows vista away in every other aspect. Though i'm not a fan of windows after 2000 (Cmon, it was the best windows based OS), They did somewhat of a decent job with 7. With the basic home user, They won't know any differences anyways. All they care is if it will run or not. I look at it as pushing away the in-depth user as well, not just cutting off CPUs.

Hi,

I'm going to jump in for sec. M$ is notorious for control over what, which and even when something is supported in any of their OS. Yes, it is M$ fault for lack of finer control and pushing Vista out the door. You would think M$ would have learned from 95 to 98, which dictated the finer control for Xp. It's their OS to do with and how but if not right then people that know do jump ship.

Two perfectly good scanners? Fine. Did you buy them recently? Did the manufacturer release drivers for Vista? If not, then it is nothing to do with Microsoft, and it is silly to hold them responsible for it.

Do you hold the Linux kernel responsible when hardware manufacturers decline to release drivers, and there is no opensource equivalent?


Sure. Any number of problems can arise if you don't do proper testing. Vista was not the crap OS it got the reputation of being, but there was also not a compelling reason for businesses to upgrade to it.

It did not require nonsenical highend hardware at all. You can run it perfectly fine on lowend hardware, although you would have to disable a few of the features, such as the new graphics systems and the desktop search.

People were downgrading because they were scared and didn't know any better. Reputations spread fast, and people who don't know better will play it safe.

They have never enforce control of what is supported, only what is Windows certified. They are two separate things, and it is no excuse for the shoddy drivers and programs that were released.

Honestly, I would like to know for people who are being purely objective, why Vista is so bad. I admit it had a bad launch, but most problems were fixed within the first few months. What problems do people have with it now?

Run Windows 7, and compare it to Windows Vista. You'll see the issues. Windows 7 is still somewhat graphical heavy, with more features, and yet runs at the speed of XP. Even after misc fixes and SP1, Vista still had alot of issues. Like how many background programs were running. Hell, I gave up on Vista after all these "fixes" because my games were still unbearable. Yeah. 20FPS on CSS with an 8400GS, which sure, isn't the best card. But 40 - 60FPS in Win XP / Win7 and 60 - 100 in Wine under Slackware 13. Big difference. Same with World of Warcraft and multiple other games I played. I couldn't tell differences in games like Diablo 2, Starcraft, and other older games. I ran into a few lag spikes during C&C 3 as well. Don't even get me started on how many issues trying to use Visual Studio on it for a while. I just recently got my dad off Vista and he's been talking about how his PC has never run so well (it came pre-installed). They rushed Vista to fast, and it turned out to be a crap OS. I could go on about multiple other issues I ran into as well.

Well, I said "out of the box". You can tweak every OS of course. Even then, Vista never performed ok for all the people I know that liked and used it for a long time.

I can't convince you that I am objective and that all I say is based on pure and plain experience. I don't have the need to do so either. Just believe it or not, it's irrelevant, and the thread is greatly deviating from the original purpose anyway.

I've used both extensivley as part of my work. Windows 7 is smoother than Vista, but that is to be expected. This does not mean Vista in itself is bad. Both Vista and 7 run faster than XP on newer hardware.


Can you be more specific? What issues were actually the fault of Vista?

Background processes is a pretty weak argument. It sounds like you may have had a lot of shit installed. On my installs, there are no more background processes than are necessary, and a very similar number to what runs under 7 or server 2008.

As was often the case, it sounds like a driver problem, probably for your graphics card.

Honestly, this just sounds like Confirmation Bias. people heard Vista was crap, went into it, and any problem just reinforced that preconception, regardless of if it was justified or not.

Out of the box, there were of course problems, Just not since SP1. Often, if there were, they were not the fault of Vista directly.

The thread is about why people use windows. I think considering how many people attack Windows, an examination of those criticisms is right in context.

"Stable and secure?" "Work with all hardware?" No version of Windows ever released will meet those criteria.

This is a specious argument. By the same token, I could say, "just because a user is too incompetent to make his sound work properly does not mean that it is a mess."

You, in fact, make my point for me right here:
Well, I never proposed that "most people" should run Linux. "Most people," quite frankly, are complete morons. They and Windows deserve one another, and I hope that the relationship lasts for a very long time. The mysteries have always been lost on the profane . . . this is why, until recently, they remained so consistently concealed.

Both OS 8 and OS X have(had) all of the following which no version of Windows has, modern or otherwise:
- Invulnerability to viruses
- Universal, automatic recognition of hardware and driver installation without troublesome installs or reboots
- Stability ("leave it on for weeks" stability . . . Windows has never had it . . . any Windows admin worth his salt sets his machines to auto-reboot every 24 to 48 hours)
- Lightweight speed and performance (You could argue that the original OS X did not have this . . .but it is back in later versions. Windows has been a hog since 95.)

You are 100% correct about the lack of a descent video editor for Linux. It is frustrating.

Look, I think that we mostly agree . . . I think that we part ways with the idea that Linux should be some kind of "every man's" operating system. God forbid, in my opinion.

I think that being "for everyone" is not a valid criteria for determining "best" when it comes to an OS. Tools should match in complexity the jobs that they are intended to do. Slackware, for example, comes out of the box ready to host FTP, SMTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, POP3, IMAP, and many more with just a few keystrokes on a fresh install. Plus, on most systems, stuff like hardware rendering and compositing works right from the gun. Is this the case with Windows? Never.
If a "desktop PC" is intended to be a glorified television, then Linux will never be the best choice. If it is intended to be a computer, suited to all of the applications of such a device, and ready to yield its secrets to a user with patience and determination who is LITERATE and can read rather than look at pictures, it is the best.

Has UNIX ever been for the "average" user? No. Should it be? Hell, no. Let the sheep among them use Windows and the smarter ones who can afford it use Mac OS, which has always been, and will most likely always be, superior to Windows in almost every way.

.... Smarter people would pay less for a Winblows PC that is just as good as a crap Mac. (I'm anti-mac, always have been, so its only my opinion :P)

When broad statements like this are said, it indicates a biased tone.

To be fair, I did mean "all consumer hardware", and I can safely say the recent versions of Windows meet that criteria.

You have to be kidding? Your logic here allows for such statements such as "Just because not everybody can compile and run Gentoo, does not mean it requires special knowledge to do so", or "SELinux is not difficult to understand, you just have to read the manual".

The fact that it is so hard to setup, that it does not work in all cases and that there are such problems with compatibility should demonstrate it is a mess, at least in some parts.

I'm not trying to criticize Linux to favour Windows here, I like and use both, but denying problems or faults where they exist helps no one.


I guess you must feel the same way about anyone using Ubuntu, or anyone who is an expert in another profession and does not want to have to learn the intricacies of Linux, and have to read about how to setup ndiswrapper to get their wireless card working or why their playing movies is slower than it should be or why Firefox looks terrible or why sound isnot working as it should etc.

You're right, anyone who wants to avoid all that and just have their computer be usable right away must be a complete moron.

Are you f**cking kidding? I work in the security industry, and that is a joke. A joke. A lack of viruses is not an invulnerability. The Mac operating systems are currently the most vulnerbale, without a doubt. Hell, look at the recent java floor that allowed for root access, and Apple took six months to fix.

In fact, there is a malware market for apple starting to thrive: http://threatpost.com/blogs/apple-ma...c-earn-043-125


As long as the hardware was supported, sure. What you describe has actually existed to varying degrees with XP. I know with Vista and 7 I was able to install all my accessory hardware and use it straight away without a problem.

You're living in the past. Windows has been stable since 2000. XP may have had a few bugs due to the shift to the NT ernel, but really, stability is not the issue it once was. It's a ridiculous insult without merritt.


As above,living in the past. I currently am using Windows, I have 2 word documents, firefox with 8 tabs, 5 text files, a video file and a shell open, as well as jdownloader and an irc client. CPU is not going higher than 10%, and memory usage is at a comfortable 800mb.

Have you actually used Windows recently?

This is where we see we strongly disagree. Choice of OS is not always dictated by how smart or knowledgeable someone is. I also don't think the best desktop OS should be defined by how many people use it, but rather what it is capable of and how well it performs.

I could not care less about politics or ideologies, I only care about the situation. At present, Windows is a much more integrated and better performing, cohesive desktop experience than Linux is.

I love Linux, and use it dearly, but it is nowhere near being a replacement for Windows or even a Mac unless you only do basic stuff, like email, basic documents, and maybe playing media.

Words cannot adequately express the affection I feel for you right now.

That is pretty much the only reason I maintain a separate partition using Windows XP. I never use a browser while using Windows.

I use AutoCAD 2004 within a VM with XP. WarCraft, StarCraft, and all other games using Crossover.

My memory footprint in Slackware is 69 MB at boot time. Right now I'm using 258 MB, having Firefox with 5 tabs and 3 windows of Konqueror.

My memory footprint in WinXP is about 100 MB at boot time, but I can make it less with some tweaking.

I have tried Vista in an uncle's laptop with a similar configuration. In Vista, the memory usage at boot time is no less than 700 MB. Actually using the machine, it climbs up to 1200-1300 MB.

BTW, about desktop replacements, I have just installed XP for a friend. (dual boot with Slackware). I searched for all GPL software to use on it, and I found pretty interesting stuff. No Amarok, XMMS or K3B, but at least I found a decent GPL audio player, plus mplayer and a cd burning suite, besides OOO. What a pity, that in time that machine will get infected. Windows is like an HIV-positive patient. You have to keep it in a safety bubble. I had to advice my friend not to use memory sticks at all while using Windows, deactivated AutoPlay (which is the source of 99.9% of memstick infections), and never to connect to the Internet. (which she doesn't anyway, but some day she will buy a modem and then... )

She already uses Linux (for some things, as she had hardware that worked better on it than on her previous WinME -long story) and is aware of the fact Linux is, if not immune, a lot stronger against viruses.

Peace.

Vista isn't as bad as whats been widely reported, but... it is bloated compared to XP. MS has even admitted it.

Personal experience: I have a notebook that came preloaded and Vista runs ok on it... but I tried to install it on a self built desktop (well within the requirements for Vista) and had problems with updates - when I checked the errors via Google, the most common response for that error was to reinstall... no thanks.

Win 7 is an upgrade to Vista at a new OS price - which I think is wrong. Vista is listed as version 6.0 and 7 is version 6.1

Vista and 7 do require better hardware than did XP - ok so the same hardware thats out now wasn't out then... but the beauty of linux is that it will run on older hardware.