March 4th, 2007 by 
brett
Dear Microsoft Corporation,
You’ve really done it this time.
And I am leaving and never speaking to you again.
It’s not that I want to dislike you. I was loyal to you for so long.
I stuck with you through thick and thin. From DOS 5.0 through XP. Through decent functionality and through countless crashes.
But this new operating system is the last straw.
I’ve read through hundreds of online reviews and comments about Vista. I’ve asked IT guys and Microsoft Certified Professionals. I’ve read the PC magazine reviews. I’ve given it a spin on my friends’ laptops.
You’d think at least someone (other than your PR people) would find something to like about a piece of software that took an industry leader five years and a gazillion dollars to develop. But I’ve yet to hear anyone say “Wow!” about it.
There’s a few lukewarm praises like “it looks better than XP if you have a new graphics card.” But most people say it’s a just a naggy, inferior imitation of Mac OS X.
A Windows worshipping gamer acquaintance told me it took literally seven or eight hours of churning to install his Vista Home Premium (sic) upgrade. After staying up all night, he found none of his device drivers worked.
With the tales of the new DRM lockdown, the User Account Control nagging, the virtualization restrictions, and the priced-to-upsell $400 product – your credibility is about as good as OJ Simpson’s.
I just don’t trust what you say anymore.
It’s a shame because there were better times in our 15-year relationship. There was the golden era a few years back (around the dot com bubble) when Windows was the platform. There was an aura of innovation and lots of exciting software new coming out for Windows.
But those days are gone. And your days are numbered, Microsoft.
I had this epiphany when I tried out my friend’s Macintosh with OS X. I realized how much grief you’d put me through: the constant crashes whenever I tried to run more than three applications, the endless required reboots, and the vicious malware attacks that I wasted many precious hours wrangling with. And then having to pay extra for third party security and virus programs - because you couldn’t keep a handle on things.
But as a veteran power user – by grace or by service pack – I always managed to fix it.
Others aren’t so fortunate.
You’ve terrified folks like my poor dad. He is afraid to install new software for any reason. He mumbles things like “Computers – you just can’t trust them.” He’s been conditioned that if he tries to install a new program or download an update – even if he does it correctly - something is likely to go awry for no explicable reason. That’s why he sticks with IE 5 and Office 97, cause he sees upgrading as too risky to gamble with.
You made millions of poor secretaries and office workers cry just for trying to do normal things like printing and saving.
It didn’t have to be like this. Shame on you!
The secret is out, Microsoft. The reputation that you can’t be trusted to deliver reliable software is getting around fast.
Hasta la Vista!
About the author: Brett is a Denver SEO, Mac freak and open-source software advocate. He’s been Microsoft-free for the past two years (except for opening the occasional work-related Word attachment) and loving every minute of it.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
very funny, for now i’ll stick with mac it’s better and easy to work with.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
thanks, Melvin..! I agree… OS X is really nice.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
I feel your pain.
I am keeping XP for now, but weighing my options. I didn’t have much trouble installing the same edition on my laptop. But I hate the crap it puts you through.
As you say, the Mac does the same thing better. If I didn’t find their prices so offensive, I would buy one.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:23 am
James,
$599 for an Intel Mac Mini that can run Vista …
March 8th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Spyware, virii, slow patch releases, reboots after everything, having to reactivate Windows with some call center on the other side of the world after upgrading my computer, “Windows Genuine Advantage” crap, and now DRM… If my copy of XP Pro hadn’t been an educational version for $10, I might have bailed after Windows 98.
But I started exploring Linux and its been worth it. I keep XP on a small partition I can dual-boot to, but rarely need to (and never want to). I love Debian, but openSUSE 10.2 (opensuse.org) is a great linux for Windows users. Burn their DVD ISO install disc and don’t look back. Sure, OSX is great, but a free OS on inexpensive PC hardware kicks ass.
March 9th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Cool Todd….
I just was watching a video of
Beryl in action and it’s really sweet. Good choice!
March 17th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Customer service agent at Toshiba states that they are getting 20 to 30 returned Vista computers each day. So many returns that Toshiba has waived all restocking fees for a return on any new computer running Vista.
March 17th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Sean,
Oh man! Like I said, I don’t want to dislike Microsoft. But they have proven themselves repeatedly unreliable.
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:33 pm
My Vista nightmare. I purchased a Sony Vaio with Vista thinking I was getting a fast computer. Vista was not compatible with the non-microsoft SW I was using, and worse yet, it caused Excel and Outlook to lock up. As the days progressed and about a hundred hard restarts, I decided to return the computer but my tech guy didn’t do it in the 3o-day window. Instead, we wiped out Vista and installed XP. The problem is the components in my computer aren’t compatible with XP. Not I have an expensive laptop that still locks up. To make matters worse, Vista architecture is different than XP and my tech guy wiped out all of my pictures and video. Most are unrecoverable so I’ve lost almost everything and still have a pice of crap computer that Sony will not support becasue it has XP. Class action anyone? I’m in. This has cost me HOURS of lost productivty and multiple all-nighters.
June 10th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Ha you have seen anything yet, wait until it has crashed and destroy the file on TWO of your PC while trying to upgrade AFTER the program said no problem go right ahead. What a usless OS. I’m seriously considering stripping off my system and going to something good
June 14th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
the Vista program is a total waste. I received it as an add on to a new computer. The cd wiped out my windows operating system. i cannot sign on using any added programs and aol has disappeared. The grahics are cheap, poorly designed and looks like you need eyeglasses or your eyes checked. dont waste your time or money on this program. Stick with windows 2000.
July 28th, 2007 at 3:20 am
im using vista. firstly ill outline the 1 yes 1 problem i have with it.
when i click a mpeg to download in firefox, it crashes windows explorer, which vista finds its crashed and restarts it.
everything else about the system is nice.
im lucky to have an extreemly good pc, dual core, 2gb ram, etc etc and i have the aero theme, which has the wow factor.
also people complaining about the added security features, have obviously never tried to use an admin feature on ubuntu.
the added security of the UAC is a nice feature, letting you know exactly what you installing and if you want to install it, and although it may be an annoyance for some, for the large majority of the non techy pc user, its a really good feature.
the windows sidebar is a nice addition, i use it to check my cpu usage, weather reports, and a really nice little feature i like, a big clock! no more squinting at the screen to see the time!
i think vista has the wow factor, but everyone wants to bash it, but its bashing it doesnt deserve.
all i say is how can you judge a book by its cover?!
i mean you can instal it and try it, i reccomend using their free virtual pc tool and give it a try before u decide on it.
Vista Has the wow factor.
July 28th, 2007 at 3:33 am
ha ha,mac is the best anyway
July 28th, 2007 at 3:34 am
I’ve used Vista since day one and have not have one single problem. I’ve used a great majority of features including some old games and still no problems. I just dread the Service Pack, as this is when things slow down and some op-bugs appear. I love Vista but I understand the hesitation of others using it.
I am using it now on both my home PC and laptop (Turion TL-60 refurbished). I used both Office 2003 and Office 2007, spybot, lavasoft, ccleaner, yadda, yadda, yadda. I consider myself fortunate then that issues haven’t arisen.
I am also running Macromedia CS, Microsoft Expression, Visual Studio 2005, Nero 7 Ultimate, and etc…
I do not use Windows Media Player 11, I don’t like it. I use Quinessential and Nero Showtime.
Hope this helps. For Security I have Windows Firewall enabled and for Virus Support I use Avast.
July 28th, 2007 at 3:43 am
@neil:
Yean, vista has the ‘wow’ factor if you’re just interested in looks (personally, I feel Aero is an ugly abomination). However, I just want an operating system to run the programs I need for my job (Graphic Designer / 3D Artist / Musician). Vista still can’t do that, so it’s an ornament - something that sits there looking pretty but is functionally useless. Even if I could get my programs to run under Vista, the OS itself seems to be using far more of my CPU time than XP - which would cause issues with some of my more CPU-heavy apps. If they ran.
Mind you, I hate OSX too (ugly, slow, too much clicking needed, breaks fundamental UI design rules - and not in a good way).
As for some of the people having trouble with a Vista install wiping out everything, it sounds like you did a clean install and didn’t read the instructions and warnings carefully enough.
Fuck Microsoft, Fuck Apple. I guess I’m moving to Ubuntu too. (for some reason WinE has no problem running the apps I need to use, yet Vista can’t).
July 28th, 2007 at 3:48 am
The only good things that are supposed to come out of Vista is a) A shiny new interface (that loses it’s “Wow” factor in about a week and a half), b) DirectX 10 API (which I’ve used the current games that support it, and have only seen slight shading enhancements and other minor details, nothing amazing), and…oh no it’s seems that I’ve ran out of things that are nice about it, and those things are but worthless gimmicks. The only thing I do miss, though, is the Games Explorer. One thing I sure wont miss is the 533mb of RAM stolen by the Aero window management software, the 25% performance loss in games (some say due to drivers, I believe there’s more frosting in the cake), and terrible networking. Hopefully SP1 will fix some of the BS in this new OS. Until then, only Mac OS and xP are my OS’s of choice.
July 28th, 2007 at 3:50 am
I have a toshiba $700 1GB laptop that had XP.I upgraded the ram to 2 GB, removed McAfee, Installed AVAST. As for other software, I have VS 2005, Corel Graphics Sute, Mercury Quality Center, Accurev Server, Oracle Lite and SQL Server Dev Edition, CC.Net Office 2007 and tons of more applications. When I migrated from XP to Vista Home Premium(Had to stay up all night), It went pretty smooth. My Machine works pretty fine.I did turn the UAC feature off. My Laptop has a crappy graphics card, but again, I am not using laptop for gaming. So It is allright I guess. I think people are truly making a big deal out of Vista migration. I am happy with Windows Vista. To satisfy my linux needs, I did install YDL in my PS3. YDL is as good as UBuntu for sure.
July 28th, 2007 at 3:57 am
@brett:
I agree with you on the damage MS has done to computing in general - I have many non-techy friends who are often confused and befuddled by Windows.
A common issue is with WiFi - despite turning off the windows wireless control and using the one that came with your WiFi card, Windows will, every now and again, decide to turn its own one on as well, resulting in the computer saying it’s connected, but not connecting. That’s the most frequent thing I’ve had to fix recently. Has there been some sort of windows update that does this?
But yes, people are scared and intimidated by computers mainly because of Microsoft incompetence. OSX (much as I hate it) is good for regular users, but Macs are still too expensive for the average user.
Linux might be ok for the most basic of users, but try and do anything reasonably advanced (music-making for example) and you’re in for a journey through command-line valley, stopping at directory structure confusion and terminating in dependency hell. Yes, even with ubuntu. Computers suck.
July 28th, 2007 at 4:12 am
is this an idiotic post to try and be cool?
my goodness…stop with the lame complaints like “i tried to run 3 apps and crashed”. C’mon XP is an awesome operating system. One of the best on the market - very stable, relatively quick, and more secure (since SP2). Maybe its your stupid apps that are written by someone else. Did you know most crashes are caused by third-party drivers and apps? But its fun to jump on the bandwagon, act like a lemon, and bash Microsoft.
Have you REALLY worked on / around Macs before? Have you ever seen the Apple BOMB? I used to work with Mac desginers and many times in a day I’d hear a “DONG” (the apple bomb) and then expletives from the designers. Me, I wwas running Windows NT, coding websites, running SQL and 10 other apps with no problems. That was circa 1995.
I don’t know about Mac OS X now and I don’t persume to be an expert with it. I’m sure its good. Just as XP is good.
But c’mon to buy into Apple’s brainwash that XP was terrible and vista is terrible?
For everyone of your silly anecdotes about upgrading, I can come up with 20 good stories. What stupid idiot upgrades a computer? Anyone with a clue knows its best to start a clean install.
You’re just fooling yourself.
July 28th, 2007 at 4:16 am
oh by the way, for your “upgrade nightmares”, you’re being stupid if you upgrade without doing research like reading up on microsoft website. they have lists of known compatibilties and issues. they spend millions on researching all this info. if you don’t read the info or research first, or run their upgrade advisor, etc, are you the idiot or is microsoft the idiot? Don’t just stick a DVD in and expect your 1980 VGA card to run Aero. Lets see if a Apple IIe will work with OS X.
July 28th, 2007 at 4:20 am
you are an idiot. vista has had some minor issues but it’s one of the best OSes out there.
stop blogspamming, POS
July 28th, 2007 at 4:20 am
i think the one thing microsoft has done wrong is they try way too hard to support all you laggers with old hardware. if they just ditched you guys and controlled their hardware they’d be in better shape. but you have to consider the thousands of third party hardware that they have to get working with their software. then you compare that with the Mac and maybe you’ll understand why if you have some problems, its to be expected. then, go to your vendor and complain and get them to fix it. its not all Microsoft.
July 28th, 2007 at 4:39 am
I have a vista and i love it. you get a little better handle on your OS with the UAC feature. Also you can view/disable any services that aren’t needed with ease. For the others who say vista is laggy and slows my computer down zzz noob Negative you have either shtty hardware and need to upgrade out of the 90s or you *THink its slow cause you see about half the ram then normal in use by a program outlisted this is because of the New Feature *SuperFetch what this service does is Saves what programs you open often and autoload them in your RAM. Now you may think Hm thats smart but what if i need to open a program that uses alot of memory Well no problem Superfetch will just decompress the memory and load up the program you need with out a problem! Vista OS is the Future for the upcoming hardware changes. Convert now or fall forever.
July 28th, 2007 at 4:44 am
@jubalh
im a graphics designer/ developer / musician and vista does everything i need it to
and if u move to ubuntu dont expect allot of mainstream programs to run as well as they do on windows. i was on ubuntu for about 4 months but i switched back because i missed the home comforts like msn ( a decent full vbersion with video etc) and dreamweaver, also i did have an online game working on it, but they upgraded and it didnt work 
July 28th, 2007 at 4:54 am
Vista was a mixed bag for me, new computer though and great video card. Had to get new scanner and printer though. Have to say most problems I experienced seemed to be the programs and not the system. Example, I could only get Nero to work for video editing, and it worked great, but nothing else, Premiere, ACDsee, or any other of the several “Vista Certified” programs I tried. Bought the system for gaming though and in that Vista was great. So this will be the last new Microsoft OS I will probably use though, been dual booting into Ubuntu. I was impressed with the fact Feisty picked up my new 22″ Samsung LCD (226 BW), and the 8800 GTX video card, and my new Brother MFC, as easily as Vista. So yeah there is a learning curve, but the difference in price between Ubuntu and Vista and Office well how can I justify the expense?
July 28th, 2007 at 4:59 am
The company everyone loved to hate fifteen years ago was IBM because it was the biggest competitor. However, I think software is blotting faster that the growth of computing power. I suppose if it was all under the hood performance improvement, nobody would think that Microsoft did anything.
July 28th, 2007 at 5:06 am
I, too, had a bunch of problems with Vista. Problems that were mostly due to a peice of hardware that was incompatible (mobo). I found this out with the use of MS compatibility tool — it warned me that the motherboard was incompatible. So, I bought a new mobo after having a few problems (PCI bridge and all PCI cards (2) redetected after each cold boot, but everything worked)
I am not too happy about having to buy a new mobo, but I also could have checked in advance of making the purchase, and found the compatibility info on the mobo manufacturer’s site (their site has said, from the time the mobo was manufactured), that it is not Vista compatible. But I happened to have some extra $$$ (earned by my services as a programmer for a successful company, where I program on this “failed, doomed” platform), and I made an impulse purchase.
On the other hand, I bought a Gateway laptop, with Vista, and it rocks! No problems yet. Literally, the thing has never crashed, had any driver compatibility issues, or anything. I have purchased a mouse, keyboard, and a 22″ widescreen Samsung monitor with 3000:1 contrast and a 2ms refresh, and everything works beautifully with Vista (everything has the “Certified for Windows Vista” sticker on it).
July 28th, 2007 at 5:22 am
Stop your whining. I dont drink from the Microsoft kool-aid fountain but I’m sick of the whining. The anti-microsoft crowd just spends too much energy whining about why ms sucks and why everything else rules. I own a vista laptop, a mac book and I run Suse Linux, PC BSD and Fedora. No one OS is perfect. They are all far from it. Linux and MAC release as many security fixes, challenge me enough when I want to make a config change to be as annoying as Vista. And my mac book ran like crap until I upgraded to 2GB of memory. So lets be honest in our whining
July 28th, 2007 at 5:22 am
I’ve been running Vista for quite some time now. (beta tester). And once you get through how everything is different, It’s great.
For those having problems retreaving info. (pictures, music,etc.)so they can downgrade. Vista uses virtual files. To find them Look in the C:\Users\User_name\AppData\Local\VirtualStore folder to locate files and folders.
Also I have had numerous people have me help them get Drivers for their computers. I don’t know why everyone is having such a hard time. I have found 99.8% that I needed to get other machines running.They are out there. LOOK FOR THEM…..
As for the security warnings. You can tweak them, or if you give it a month for Vista to learn your habits. You’ll see that they slow down to just a few.
God I still remember when XP hit the shelves. Same people crying over everything about it. Can’t find drivers… need more Ram…. need a new graphics card… it keeps crashing…. worst OS ever….yada yada yada.
July 28th, 2007 at 5:26 am
Great point about trying mac os/x and realizing how crappy vista is… to take it even further, try the latest ubuntu… it’s free and completely blows vista out of the water. unbelievable.
Is vista a good os? sure, why not. Is it great? perhaps. but given the amount of time and resources ms put into building it and compared to mac os/x and (FREE) ubuntu, it boils down to being a huge embarassement and lesson in how not to build software. its saving grace is the well established OEM channel relationahips that result in (almost) every new DELL, HP, etc… being shipped w/ Vista by default… if everyone out there had to walk into business depot and actually shell out $400 for vista, well, ms would be in a world of hurt.
My fav feature of vista?? the dialog that pops up everytime I boot up asking is I want to find the driver for the on-board 90kpbs dial-up modem on my DELL lapltop, that, for the record, came bundled with visat.. the obvious rest of the story is that I click the not so helpful “don’t find the driver and never ask again” option, which as far as I can tell does absolutely nothing.
if nothing else, the whole vista thing is highly entertaining to watch.
July 28th, 2007 at 5:28 am
When I bought my new laptop from Dell a few months ago, it came with Vista. I was very excited, actually, to have it and play around with it — the first Microsoft product I’ve been interested in using since XP came out a number of years ago. Granted I’m a Linux and FLOSS enthusiast.
I knew Vista was a memory hog, and although Dell (and others) recommend 1GB of RAM for Vista, I spent the extra ~$200 for the second gig of RAM — just to be on the safe side.
My laptop came, I powered it up, and after about 10 minutes of loading I was able to get to the First Time Setup screen… it was all fancy and nice. My desktop loaded for the first time and it was shiny, attractive, the Sidebar looked useful (though the gadgets totally screamed OS X), and I was ready to rock. All the drivers looked to be working.
I jumped on to IE7, downloaded Firefox and was on my way. After I installed maybe 15 small to medium sized programs, I noticed that Vista had gotten oddly slow, even when all the programs were closed (I checked Task Manager just to be sure).
I rebooted, thinking that might help. It really didn’t. I couldn’t understand why even with 2GB of RAM, Vista was still taking several seconds to open the start menu after I clicked the little Microsoft logo.
As others have reported, it seemed to be Aero. I went into Control Panel and switched Aero off — just giving me the same Aero colors without the Aero Glass or anything like that. That helped a lot, but it was still too slow. The start menu took about one second to load after I clicked. Way too long for a brand new computer!
I ended up switching to “Windows Classic;” think Windows 98, but with better text rendering and slightly nicer colors.
That ended up pretty much doing the trick. Okay, whatever. So, I was ready to move on. But then it seemed like every program that actually DOES something needed to be granted permission. It even asked me once if I wanted to run Calculator. Calculator! The most harmless of all programs.
To give you an example, every time I opened iTunes: do you want to run Last.FM? There were a few games installed that didn’t even connect to the Internet — each time I wanted to open one I had to assure and reassure Vista that I wanted it to run.
Okay, whatever. They’re maybe trying a bit too hard in the wrong area to make me safe. At least Microsoft is making some kind of an effort to keep me safe.
But the deal breaker for me was when I, along with many others, discovered that a number of US Government and International agencies had access to my computer and were sniffing around, most likely for terrorism stuff. Errrr!? I didn’t feel safe anymore. It’s bad enough I was probably being watched by Microsoft, but my hard drive was being inspected non-stop for TERRORISM by the AUTHORITIES?
As much as I am a die-hard Linux and FLOSS enthusiast, I was genuinely excited about Vista. I wanted it to be the main operating system on my new laptop. Not anymore.
I switched to Linux — Kubuntu, specifically. I just had to. I wanted, for once, to be able to actually like a Microsoft product without being able to poke a hole in the wall and find skeletons. With Linux and FLOSS software, not only can I legally poke holes in the wall, but if I find some skeletons, I’m legally aloud to throw them away.
Good luck.
July 28th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Virus Infection Spyware Trojan Adware
That Windows vista for you
July 28th, 2007 at 5:34 am
Ben, could you point us to more info on the us government “inspecting” your hard drive??
July 28th, 2007 at 5:37 am
How boringly predictable. Vista sucks and Linux is great. Try to have your mom, dad and grandparents run Linux. Then post some comments on how great it is.
July 28th, 2007 at 5:38 am
After OS X there’s no going back… Never ever =)
July 28th, 2007 at 5:40 am
@neill Well, for me, Lightwave 9 works better in Wine than in vista - but that’s probably a driver issue. I’ve also found myself using Blender more and more, as it makes some operations much easier, and has an interface based on similar principles to lightwave: confusion, ugliness and a lack of consistency.
For music, my Emu 1616m soundcard is unsupported in ALSA (linux) until 1.0.15, but the beta Emu driver for Vista crashes a lot, requiring a reboot to get sound to return. My musician friends who have been using vista on better-supported hardware are quite unkind about the audio / asio performance compared to XP or OSX. Worst of all, no Pro Tools! Getting my nice expensive VSTs to work in linux is a nightmare that I’m dreading. FST looks… complicated.
As I’m now developing sites mainly in PHP with AJAX / CSS, dreamweaver is less of an issue, I prefer to use Eclipse and a browser window connected to a test LAMP setup. I will miss dreamweaver for rapid UI / layout prototyping, though, unless I can get it to work under Wine too.
Photoshop CS2 runs fine under Wine with a bit of work, but the GIMP is usually sufficient for the majority of work - especially in this web 2.0 age where everything is just gradients, gradients, gradients.
I don’t use MSN, or any IM programs. So I’m not too fussed about that, and the only game I play regularly is Enemy Territory, which has a linux version.
Time to try using Ubuntu (Studio) exclusively without an XP safety net, I guess. This’ll be fun. Really.
July 28th, 2007 at 6:05 am
I gave Vista a serious tryout when I got it pre-installed with my new laptop. Tried it for a couple of weeks, and I’m no n00b mind you, but I’ve given up on trying to understand how this should be ‘wow.’ All in, it’s a very poor user experience, from the “what can it actually do for me” point-of-view.
So, after having wasted five weekends trying to get it to do what I want, I installed Ubuntu Linux three weeks ago. Took me 15 minutes to install and I’ve been up and running since then
Ubuntu is great, I wish I dared to make this step earlier. Everything just works, is simple to use, and the learning-curve cross-over from XP is very short (be sure to pick up the most excellent book “Ubuntu for non-geeks, 2nd edition” if you want to give it a try–CD with Ubuntu included!). Ubuntu does what I want it to do. Using the Add/Remove Programs menu you can actually install software! (Useful, free, quality software.) And better yet, Ubuntu keeps all YOUR installed software up-to-date! Automatically! Try that, Vista :-<
I installed it on my mom’s PC last weekend along with WINE so she can run her Windows games. She’s been using it since and called me last night to thank me for installing Ubuntu. She’s happy to use it and hasn’t had ONE annoying pop-up window with “This program wants to access bla bla potentially dangerous bla bla … OK or Cancel?” question from the PC since
For pete’s sake Microsoft, my mom is almost 60, how did you think she was going to be able to use Vista if I can’t even get it to just work the way I want to!!!
I’m going to switch my dad’s computer next month. He’s getting the hang of OpenOffice right now, so he’s able to make the switch from Microsoft Office when he goes to Ubuntu.
And that’s it folks
I don’t have to play tech support for my family anymore - upkeep of Ubuntu is just so simple and easy even my mother understands how to install updates now when needed (she never figured it out on Windows, always told me “the computer wanted something, but I pushed cancel.”) My wive already switched when I showed her some games to play 
(PS. Love ya honey!)
Hasta La Vista indeed
So take a leap of faith so to speak, and try Ubuntu. You can run it from the CD without it touching anything on your harddrive to give it a go. And when you do install, dual-boot with Windows or OS X is a default option! Read more at www.ubuntu.com
See you there!
July 28th, 2007 at 6:08 am
WOW how do I uninstall this
July 28th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Windows (probably XP since you said you didn’t actually install Vista) most likely crashed when you ran more than three programs because of hardware issues. I run both a mac and pc, both well equipped, and can effectively crash the mac trying to do too much at once on it.
Apple gets to almost completely control the hardware on which their OS is installed, whereas someone could try to install Windows on the dumpiest computer on earth and cry foul when “windows” causes problems.
I think not fixing what isn’t broken is a good idea and will continue to run XP, which I can never recall crashing.
July 28th, 2007 at 6:12 am
Why is Gods Name Would I want to dual boot OS X and Linux. Linux suck worst than Vista
July 28th, 2007 at 6:24 am
New User - “Anyone with a clue knows its best to start a clean install.”
Apparently you don’t know how many clueless users there out there dumbass
July 28th, 2007 at 6:40 am
Vista is causing me angst.
July 28th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Guys first of all i dont see y all are against vista..
as far as i know vista is very good… but still many Sw doont support.. but thats nota big issue… coz most of the major SW are giving out vista compatible SW as we talk g\here…
crahe3s????
wht the hell /… i am running p4 with 1.5gb ram ddr
256 graphics card…nvidia 6200
NEVER HAVE CRASHED SO FAR…
UAC… if u know wht it is .. u will love it .. some times its a annoying factor.. but most of the time it saves me…
any body reading this utter blog of vista nightmare-oowww…can give this blog a oooowwwwww…!!!
July 28th, 2007 at 7:01 am
I’m writing this on an Ubuntu laptop (Compaq Presario) after wiping Windows off it for the last time 8 months ago. Next to me is my iMac (24″, awesome!) playing my music. I have used MS for years, DOS > 3.1 > 95 > 98 > 2K > XP. I refuse to pay for another operating system from them. Constantly spending money to stay current and then the ever present ‘upkeep’, crashes, and the MS Spyware with its side benefit of ever shrinking hard disk space. I’m done. Thanks for the memories Microsoft. Never again.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:04 am
You are an idiot. Let’s just say I’m under 18. I had Vista running like a pro in a day. Don’t even try to consider yourself a power user.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Stop!! you’re rocking my boat!! as an I.t. guy i must thank Microsoft for consistently putting out products that make me look good. If windows and Office especially the newest itereations didn’t have so many issues, i wouldn’t have 300 needy bitches that can’t do a thing wihtout me when there system get’s a virus crashes or needs a new program. at my job i get to be a hero and a genius everyday and i’m paid well for my service. As I type this out on my mac OSX laptop that’s on it’s 13th day of uptime, I wonder what would happen if those same whiny bitches had Macs. I’d be back to delivering pizzas like i was doing before windows came along. the more people like you tip off the public that windows isn’t’ the only game in town and they don’t’ have to deal with Microsoft’s nonsense the more whiny bitched will buy and install Ubuntu open office and Apple software. That means less functionality and usability problems for me to fix which , over time will hits me square in the pocket book over. For the love of god, keep the users thinking that their only choice is to use windows and that computers are complicated and unreliable and they need people like me t fix them by not publishing how well the other options work. thanks.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Reply to Siva (one post above)
a) Maybe you should learn proper english. Shit, the phrase “1337 h@x0r” has better sentence structure than you do.
b) “UAC… if u know wht it is .. u will love it .. some times its a annoying factor.. but most of the time it saves me…” - If you have to rely upon a program like UAC to “save your ass” then you should really learn a few lessons in proper computer security and protection
c) “any body reading this utter blog of vista nightmare-oowww…can give this blog a oooowwwwww…!!!” - I’ll give you a good blogging if I ever find you. Any OS that takes 10GB for a bare install can suck my balls. I can run a bare install of Gentoo Linux that has all the functionality that Vista has out of the box on less than 2GB…oh yeah, and it doesn’t cost me $200-$400.
d) “coz most of the major SW are giving out vista compatible SW as we talk g\here…” - Is there even such a word as “g\here”? Last time I tried to search for that word with wikipedia it said you should check your spelling and try again.
e) “as far as i know vista is very good… but still many Sw doont support” - What good is an OS that has near zero support for third party software? Great, I can look at the pretty glass effects for the entire day since none of my programs work. Did I mention I can achieve the same “WOW” of Aero with Beryl?
July 28th, 2007 at 7:09 am
In reply to SYPHRON
“You are an idiot. Let’s just say I’m under 18. I had Vista running like a pro in a day. Don’t even try to consider yourself a power user.”
ding Grats, you’ve gotten out of high school and you now know how to install Vista. Try installing a couple dozen non-Microshit apps on that box of yours and see if it still runs like a pro.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:15 am
In reply to “Linux Losers”
“How boringly predictable. Vista sucks and Linux is great. Try to have your mom, dad and grandparents run Linux. Then post some comments on how great it is.”m
I’ll probably be putting Gentoo on my parents computer next time I’m up there. Why? All they need is E-Mail, Web, and Music. They have a crusty old 1.7Ghz Celeron in their machine and even XP (which is much better than Vista in my opinion) runs like a dog. I’ve ran Gentoo Linux with Firefox 2.0.0.5 and OpenOffice on a Pentium II laptop and it runs smoother. And did I mention that it will never get a virus, trojan, worm, etc. Nor will it ever get adware, spyware, malware, etc.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:16 am
“and the learning-curve cross-over from XP is very short (be sure to pick up the most excellent book “Ubuntu for non-geeks, 2nd edition””
So easy to use, you need a book to figure it out! Seriously, if you needed a book for Ubuntu, you are a noob.
Vista is a fine OS, for those that actually understand that yes, you need the hardware for it. For those of us that arn’t working at McDonalds part-time, it’s not expensive.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:17 am
no problems at all installing vista. running dual boot with xp just in case, but no issues yet.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:21 am
I had trouble even installing Vista. First, it couldn’t find my cd-rom drive when I had already booted from the cd-rom, and was in the installer. After about a day, I eventually got past that (dunno how). This time though, it didn’t react to neither of my usb-mouse and usb-keyboard. Fine, I thought, plugged in a ps2-keyboard and rebooted. Now my computer wouldn’t even start. I think the motherboard broke. So I’ve sent it for replacement, and am still waiting for a new one. Thanks, vista! I’m sticking with XP now.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Boy oh boy, another reply to “New User”
“i think the one thing microsoft has done wrong is they try way too hard to support all you laggers with old hardware. if they just ditched you guys and controlled their hardware they’d be in better shape. but you have to consider the thousands of third party hardware that they have to get working with their software. then you compare that with the Mac and maybe you’ll understand why if you have some problems, its to be expected. then, go to your vendor and complain and get them to fix it. its not all Microsoft.”
I run a fairly respectable rig if I must say so myself. 2GB ram, dual core Opteron 175, 8800GTX, 4×500GB 1×160GB 1×250GB 1×300GB hard drives, 700 Watt PSU, and on and on and on. Anyways, the quote “i think the one thing microsoft has done wrong is they try way too hard to support all you laggers with old hardware” has a certain appeal to me. Last time I checked it was the exact opposite of what you mentioned. I’ve ran into people that bought Vista and own PCs that came from the mid-XP era (2003-2004 or so) that are having hardware compatability issues with Vista. Whether it be a sound card (standard AC’97), integrated video card (Intel i810..yes they put those on plenty of machines), etc and none of them seem to run very happy in Vista.
Next in line is “but you have to consider the thousands of third party hardware that they have to get working with their software” - They have to GET those working? As in, they actively need to fuck with the stuff to make it work? I can run the stock gentoo-sources-2.6.21-r4 kernel and it supports EVERY piece of hardware in my computers dating from a Pentium MMX 200Mhz laptop to my desktop. The only extra driver I need is the video card driver. All I need for that is emerge ati-drivers or emerge nvidia-drivers and that’s fixed too. So all in all I have video cards that need external drivers. The funny thing is that I use Gentoo Linux on a bootable USB hard drive to fix problems that family and friends have with their Windozer machines.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Macs are nice - I should know, I own one. I love the interface the design but there is one small hitch - the price. I use it and recommend Macs to my friends.
They may be cheap in the US, but the UK, they are not. I take one small example, the MacBook. It sells for starting price of $1099. In english money that is £536. In the UK the base MacBook with exactly the same spec is £699 ($1432). So that is a price difference of £163 ($333). Not so cheap after all. If only Apple wouldn’t be so unfair with their pricing and remove the unnecessary price difference, Macs would be perfect.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Response to “neil”
“also people complaining about the added security features, have obviously never tried to use an admin feature on ubuntu.”
All I can say to you is sudo sudo sudo sudo sudo sudo sudo…
July 28th, 2007 at 7:37 am
I am no where near a n00b, and switched to Vista on my main computers (very beefy hardware). I have to say, I was very disappointed. I experienced software crashes from certified software and other little annoyances (like being logged in as a ‘admin’, but still having dropped privs in a CMD shell). The clicher was with file and folder permissions. I would create a file or folder, then find later that it was marked a R/O or had other ’special’ permissions set on it. Then when mounting up an external HDD that had files from my XP days, I had to do the customary ‘take ownership (recursive)’, but even after doing so, Vista still screwed the pooch on the permissions.
Frustration led to doing a full switch of my primary desktops over to Ubuntu. I have not looked back.
For those fanboys that say ‘have your parents try Linux and see just how non-easy it is’ could not be more wrong. My dad is the kiss of death to operating systems. I had him run the Feisty live cd for a week, and then he installed it himself (simple as clicking on the icon) and has had NO problems in the past month (unlike the daily XP problems he inflicted upon himself).
July 28th, 2007 at 7:44 am
The “Macs are more expensive” statements I see everywhere are misleading. I’ve read numerous comparisons between a Mac and a similar equipped PC, and almost all conclude the pricing is similar (some times the Mac is even cheaper). The real problem is there are to few Mac models, which sometimes makes you think the Mac is more expensive (since the cheaper configuration you want simply doesn’t exist).
July 28th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Very well said. Now go on and download Ubuntu and try out Beryl! Then you’ll see what a real desktop experience is like.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Jack (#33):
Here’s more information on the government “checking up” on Vista users.
http://www.whitedust.net/news/3984/UnitedStatesGovernmentOnlineWatchdogs?Partofthewaronterror?…/
July 28th, 2007 at 8:35 am
I used Vista for months, but just switched back to XP. I am a IT consultant working for a big Microsoft partner, so I thought it was my duty to run Vista, but even my company IT department advises not to upgrade to Vista.
I was running Vista ultimate and with the exception of the encrypting file system, I touched on just about everything over the 5-6 months I ran it.
Here are my problems with it:
Application sharing in MSN Messenger is not supported on Vista (even Microsoft has not upgraded their software to support Vista)
My leading edge computer runs much slower on Vista than XP
Yes, the Glassy UI is a bit nicer to look at - big whoop
The Web Conferencing tool my company uses does not support Vista
Having to screw around figuring out which proggrams need to run as administrator to work properly and manually change shortcuts, etc.
VPN problems!!!! I have multiple examples where I can VPN into client sites on XP just fine, but Vista fails. I have spent hours on the forums trying to track down the problem.
Having to track down manually drivers for a lot of peripheral hardware
I expect the new generation of software across the whole industry might support Vista better - try waiting until 2009. Of course, by then, Micrsoft will have released another new version
Agreed - Hasta la Vista.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Vista is here to stay. Get a grip.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:59 am
I’m an old guy. I’ve been waiting for the government to have custom spyware made for them and sent everywhere. If the young people are able to finish there lives without being under a dictator it would be a surprize to me. Freedom to speak and choose is the real issue. For that reason don’t trust Vista.
July 28th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Who hires the best. Right now if you are a hot shot programmer out of school, you have several choices; Google, Apple and Microsoft. If you are really good, you’re not going to want to live in Seattle, highest suicide rate in the US, rain day after day, horrible traffic, very high heroin addiction. I was a consultant for many months, working at Boeing, I couldn’t wait to leave…and yes I know, I heard it all the time “But it’s pretty and green up here”, I don’t care.
Like it or not Google and Apple are rising the bar, innovating, trying new things. Will the IPhone work out, maybe, only history will tell. The stuff I’ve seen at Google will blow your minds, just wait 18 Months and the internet will evolve again. What’s Apple going to do next? If I was just out of school, my last choice would be Microsoft. I would much rather work for Steve, Eric or Larry then Bill. Look up the Corporate Executives for all three, who would you work for.
Take Excel for example, Bread and Butter software for Microsoft. How much has it changed in the last ten years, great they added an Easter egg pinball game inside it. But have you ever tired to reference a different ‘sheet’ in a formula. It’s horrible programming.
During my Boeing gig, I used to play volleyball with the microsofties, nice people, nice cars, great sand volleyball court on the campus. After playing we would all go out and drink. I was amazed at lack of fire and passion. It was just a job. I can understand, you work for Bill Gates, he strikes fear, not honor and respect. Google on the other hand is crazy, they are hiring the best of the best, and paying them very well. They are excited. The is a big sucking sound in Silicon Valley, that ends at the front door of Google. Google’s rejects go work for Microsoft. And at Microsoft. If your really good you go work for -> X-Box, Pretty good -> R&D, OK Good - > Vista, Less then good -> Programs (Word, Excel, etc). It makes sense, put your best talent in the profit centers.
The only reason Microsoft is still a player… they have market share and tons of CASH!!! If something better comes along in the way of an OS or (super browser) that does what word and excel can do, my guess is that MS goes away like IBM did. Look at the WII, sales are crazy on that thing and it’s not made with the super deep pockets of MS or SONY.
July 28th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Vista does suck the only good windows product I used was XP with the latest updates! But the thing that amazes me is Mac OS X is just as expensive than windows and people rather buy that when you get get Ubuntu, or any other linux distro easy to use free or $20.00. ???? I never used linux before, but when I switched over to Ubuntu 7.04, with Beryl, and Automatix IT IS AMAZING!!
July 28th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Does anyone else think this was written by Apple?
July 28th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Windows Vista is perfectly fine. If you have a problem with it your just an idiot.
Ubuntu still is not ready for prime time.
Mac is fine.
July 28th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Heres my Vista “Horror story”.
I put the Vista disk into my new machine and watched it install. After that, it loaded up my desktop for the first time, and made noise. Wait a minute,,, it loaded the driver for my sound card automatically. In fact, it installed drivers for ALL my hardware, and I had full functionality right off that bat, including ethernet drivers, video card drivers, everything. NOW they have gone too far, obviously this Vista thing has crossed the line. And to my horror, its still running, and its running well. What do they take me for!
Sorry everyone, I could keep going and going on this, but my point is that Vista gave me only one problem since I started using it (many months), and granted I do have many many years of computer knowledge (most likely pushing “important things” that I cant remember now, out)I did not have to reach into my internal database for this one. It worked great, and still is.
I see this stemming from 2 problems. First of which, is some people who know nothing about computers, or hardly even how to use them, are giving their “professional” opinions on how crappy Vista is. Heck, some people who are complaining so hardily about this operating system, have never even owned it, or spent more than 5 minutes using it.
Second problem, I blame the computer manufacturers like Toshiba (just to name one), who make notebooks so low-end that they cant even run vista properly (also the low end machines come with vista basic (which I will openly admit, is a steaming pile of crap, which is why you dont skimp on your operating system just to save a few bucks, get the good one).
Anyone who goes out to buy a computer and goes “oh, look, a 400$ laptop, what a great deal and I want that one” is not someone who can accurately give a review on the software (plus the laptops are so “Cheap” that they can hardly even run vista (they would struggle with XP as well).
Ok, sorry everyone, heres the point of my comment. In my opinion Vista is getting a bad rap, and from all the wrong people. Im sure there are cases where the operating system has done horrible things for people, but was XP an angel from god? Ok, im done. And I do apologize for my rant
July 28th, 2007 at 9:52 am
What a fat crap or article… got to be from an American shit head who also voted twice for Bush and is happy about it.
July 28th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Dang Tokintegra…you sound like a paid for MS cheerleader by blaming all the Vista woes on hardware and stupid users. That must be the answer Vista is a pain for most who use it.
There is no way that when people talk about problems that it can be that their software won’t run in Vista, some of their hardware drivers are still lacking, or that the performance Vista promises still isn’t there.
My biggest complaint(s) in regards to Vista is the software incompatibility and the fact you have to have the hardware of some GOD machine to get decent performance. I also tend to think that at the moment XP is more angelic that Vista for those that don’t want to invest so heavily in the upgrade…for software and hardware. I think there is hope for Vista, maybe after SP1!?
July 28th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Tokintegra, I also find it interesting that you say Vista is ONLY for strong users, like you. OK then what should the newer, less experienced users use? Are they even allowed to use computers in your world? You know very well, that given the time and Money that MS put into Vista, It should dance like angels. What people are talking about here, is their honest problems. Vista will get better, given more time and money and all of you beta testers, testing it right now. OS-X first release had it’s problems to. That’s the nature of software. The original idea at MS, was that IT people would maintain the computers, and that you would be protected from yourself. As a consumer of Computers, I don’t want an IT department in my house, or even the super computer wizz kid down the block.
July 28th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Vista is Bushes fault too????? Wow, tell me more.
I thought we, the USA, invented computers, IC chips, Modems, the internet, etc. That makes us Sxxxheads?
July 28th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Windows Vista’s buggy SATA2 driver has wiped out my precious 80GB Data.
Anyway now I am happy with Mac OS X, GNU/Linux.
July 28th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Made millions of secretaries and office workers cry because they can’t save?
Do you expect people to take your letter seriously with such outrageous exaggerations?
And “constant” crashes every time you had tried to run more than three applications? Huh?
Why is it that I experience so few of these crashes that everybody loves to complain about when talking about Windows? At ALL times I’m at LEAST running Winamp, Photoshop, Firefox, Trillian, and Google Talk and crashes are VERY few and far between.
I’ve been using Windows for many years and I’ve had three BSODs.
July 28th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Gee, hot topic! Anyone here concerned about what kind of Microsoft controlled world their children will grow up in?
Vista advances the amount of DRM, software-lockin and “big brother” spyware features in the OS. A world in which a mega-corporation decides what I can and can not do with my computer scares the bleep out of me.
Please stop and think about what Microsoft (and the US Government for that matter) is doing right now. They are restricting your freedom of choice. That’s right, you didn’t know you had that, did ya
For example, the One Laptop Per Child project is supposed to share knowledge with children in 3rd world countries. The BBC (British Broadcaster, with a lot of educational programs) just locked itself in with Microsoft. The video player for accessing their educational programs for free only works on–wait for it–Windows
And of course the stream format is proprietary, so no luck for the 3rd world children and their OLPC computers which are running Linux of course. Why Linux? Well, that runs on cheap hardware and Microsoft ain’t going to give away anything to support the advancement of human kind. (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does so though, so good for them!) Can you figure those children buying Vista for their educational classes? Nope, me neither.
Microsoft is in it for the money–nothing wrong with that in itself–but they are actively stopping the advancement of the human race as a whole.
Free as in freedom is important. Think big people
July 28th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Wait and see, by next year the hype and anti-hype will have died down…people will be using Vista on their super-dooper fast hardware…all will be well with the world.
At least its not Windows ME.
:-)
I personally have had no issues with it, I bought a new HP laptop (Core 2 Duo) it runs it fine with or without fancy graphics. I also just built a new computer for a friend with Vista UE, yes its a beast of a system but in two years time it’ll probably be a fossil…it runs Vista perfectly.
Dry your eyes and get back on with life.
July 28th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Lol guys. I guess I was just tired of all this hate on the operating system. Im sure part of it stems from the fact that I listen to yuppies complain about vista at my work, when theyve never even used it. I always kept my mouth shut, this was the first I spoke up about it, and the last, so I spoke a bit too loud I suppose. There are of course some software compatibility issues, for sure. Only problem I had was my new machine wont run Call of Duty 2.
To break it down I guess I should say Im not blaming it so much on less experienced users, as much as Im just sick of hearing complaints about it from people who dont know how to do anything but surf the web and check their email.
There surely are some definitive issues with the OS, but in my opinion its getting much more of a bum rap than necessary. (I can never put just 2 cents in i guess, its always my whole darn paycheck =)
July 28th, 2007 at 11:40 am
I use Macs and PCs daily for work and play. I find I can manipulate files much faster with Windows XP Explorer than OS X Finder. (By “manipulate files”, I mean move, copy, rename, delete, and open one or more files on multiple volumes.) I’ve been using Vista for about a month now. Although I like some of its new features (like the improved Task Scheduler), I despise Vista Explorer. It tries to look like a Web browser while incorporating many of the features of OS X that it make it inefficient. The titlebar is way too big–probably just to show off its silly translucency. The interface is cluttered and ugly. I’ve tried switching to the Classic theme, but I still hate it.
July 28th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
ha..ha…too good..
July 28th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Vista is no tea party for anyone wanting to use Adobe Production Suite (especially After Effects). However, saying switching to Mac is a solution is not. Gray kernel panic and hardware drivers area a nightmare. No one likes to talk about that much. I am just as at home on a Mac as I am on a PC. I have to be, I edit video and audio for a living. However, Macs are obscenely priced and you know damn well a Mac mini ain’t gonna cut the mustard. Let’s be honest but fair about this.
July 28th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
ok so here i go bashing an operating system vista… I know super nerd why even care. I used it for a good two weeks for work light office productivty burn dvds etc. It was flashy and on my machine ran just fine however here is the catch it just started to eat up more and more ram. I am disappointed i guees cause here is linux and osx with half or less programers with 1/10th the budget of ms and are putting out products with less errors in there code with a more robust system and that uses less lines of code. Did the os work as it was designed yes did it run office 07 fine you bet was i impressed no way. I agree it is job security cause it is just a matter of time before people who make the trogans make the viruses decide to start in on vista. People say well it is casue of there market share I say it is cause of the ease of the explotation it is not like linux or osx where when i want to make a life altering change i have to ok it. Windows still uses a registry and for as long as they stick with that it will be a virus and malware magnet cause you can write to it even with out doing an install. I am sorry but them be the facts patch all you want but the registry should have died in 2000 kill that and you will have true security
July 28th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
I have a laptop running vista and fedora 7, a mac and a pc running xp, recently I tried to print some documents in vista, but I could not get anything to print, even after several tries. Just for kicks, I tried to print on my mac, and guess what? It worked perfectly, then I printed the same document using fedora, and even xp, without any trouble.
July 28th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
i have to run windoze XP on my 3 year old laptop due to corporate crap. Recently (3 months ago) it really started to slow me down (2Ghz pentium-m with 2Gigs RAM) specifically due to all the spyware, virus scanners, firewall software installed by IT security…paranoia is rife running windoze….got fed up and installed Ubuntu 7.04 with Compiz-fusion - Well…..my old laptop has become new again! it runs windoze better inside vmware than it did standalone! Imagine having to run a whole operating system just to get e-mail (outlook) and write documents (word), at least I can develop under linux and loving the extra performance gained. Ubuntu has revived my desktop experience…all this for free! Good bye Micro$oft…good riddance.
July 28th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Advice from Microsoft: defrag your harddrive and all your problems will be solved!
July 28th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Love it! Made me laugh a few times too, a very good read. Thanks for sharing this with us.
July 28th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
…
July 28th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
When will you Ubuntu?
July 28th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Ubuntu for school > all
Windows for games and nothing more
osx…i have Tux
July 28th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
When you switch to a mac, you won’t miss Microsoft within a week. Goodluck and thanks for a funny article.
July 28th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Windows vista sucks, there are nothing more than beutiful desktop. I have windows xp and ubuntu on my machine
July 28th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Ive used XP for years (since the day it was released) and I love it. It has been stable for me and on a game machine it simply does what its suppose to which is stay out of the way. XP is that older lady down the street who is still kinda hot and has a few tricks left up her sleeve. Shes stable, easy to have fun with and likes games.
Ive tried Vista on another machine……HOLY CRAP….I cant believe they released this mess! Slow, Unstable, Bloated, I call it the Hollywood OS, it might be pretty to look at but its vapid, empty headed and any kind of relationship with it will only last a very short time before you serve it papers.
OS X is like that hot chick that can carry on a conversation about something other than shopping, better yet she has low expectations so you might actually get to first base with her.
July 28th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I run OSX Tiger on an 11-year-old Powerbook (500mhz Pismo). It installed and runs like butter. I use it everyday. At work, I use multiple PCs (I work at a software co.) with all the Windows OS’s. One of my coworkers (a PC engineer) noticed me using OSX during lunch and asked me to try different things (”Let’s see it do dock animations!”) as if searching for something the old laptop could not do. But it was flawless. Yes, the apps ran slower that they would on a newer machine, but they RAN and did not crash. He couldn’t fathom how the hell it worked. I even ran multiple apps to show him how stable it was. He dismissed it, saying Vista was superior. I told him to install Vista on an 11-year-old PC laptop and see how far he gets.
July 28th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I run OSX Tiger on an 11-year-old Powerbook (500mhz Pismo). It installed and runs like butter. I use it everyday. At work, I use multiple PCs (I work at a software co.) with all the Windows OS’s. One of my coworkers (a PC engineer) noticed me using OSX during lunch and asked me to try different things (”Let’s see it do dock animations!”) as if searching for something the old laptop could not do. But it was flawless. Yes, the apps ran slower that they would on a newer machine, but they RAN and did not crash. He couldn’t fathom how the hell it worked. I even ran multiple apps to show him how stable it was. He dismissed it, saying Vista was superior. I told him to install Vista on an 11-year-old PC laptop and see how far he gets.
July 28th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Mac Hardware is the same or less expensive as Dells I made the switch to Apples about 8-9 months ago. I use to use Linux and WinXP(more xp though). I made the switch to a MacBook Pro and never looked back. Macs have tons of open source software, commercial software, freeware etc. I could never use Windows again after using OS X.
Contrary to what many believe…for comparable hardware Macs are either about the same price as a Dell or less expensive. See the link below to the comparisons.
http://www.systemshootouts.org/
So for all the people complaining about Mac Hardware prices.. stop spreading FUD and ignorance!
July 28th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Hello everyone,
I’ve been a poweruser for as long as the personal computer existed. I’ve extensively used every version of DOS and Windows till Vista. I do scientific research on Debian (Linux) and IRIX (Unix), and I need to work on Windows 2000 at work for corporate reasons. At home, I have Powerbook G4 running OS X Tiger, an old laptop running XP, and a desktop that dual boots XP and RedHat Linux. It used to triple-boot (I had Win98 running for a while).
I’ve been supporting family members and many friends with their computers. I’ve supported WinPCs, Macs and Linux boxes. I’ve helped set-up and establish a number of networks and clusters. I have always tried to understand the user-experience on every platform.
So, when a few asked for help installing Vista for them, or helping them with new computers (all the bells and whistles) running Vista, I came across every single complaint shared here. I was able to help, but the experience got me to reflect on the “Wow” factor.
Since I can’t claim to be an expert on Vista, I can’t really tell someone that it is good or bad. I can only compare installation and maintenance to the other OSs. The initial expectation I had that this would be easier and more straight forward with Vista. It was not. What I’m hearing from the people I help does not indicate they are enjoying their experience with Vista. Most compare it negatively to XP, excepting cosmetics.
So I’m guessing/hoping this will improve with future SP releases.
For now, I will not upgrade my Win OSs to Vista. Waiting is safer.
As for what I think would be good for users, here is the breakdown:
1- Mac OS X would be an OS that a 4 year old (not kidding here), a geek and a 90 year old would be able to use with complete ease. In its current incarnation, it is extremely stable. I have never had to do a hard reboot, and have rarely had to support someone using a mac. Best choice for noobies in my opinion. Given the switch to Intel, Macs can now run all 3 major OSs: OS X, Linux and Windows (XP and Vista). So for a poweruser or a gamer, it would be a practical choice, and there is virtually nothing that cannot be done on a mac. The hardware is high quality, and resale value is great.
2- For powerusers that want to build their own boxes, use older hardware or are on a budget; and for putting together computer clusters, Linux is the way to go. Debian on a desktop is arguably the most stable OS out there. Although Linux (especially Ubunto) has come a long way, I would not yet suggest it to a complete noobie to computers, my child or my my grandmother. With Linux, you definitely get a great deal of freedom to play under the hood. Not everything can be done on Linux, yet. But open source software is very rapidly closing the gap. Wine continues to improve, and support for software designed for Windows is progressively growing.
3- For the rest, people with some experience on computers (enough to keep it firewalled, malware free and defragged) but are not really geeks, as well as hard-core gamers, a well-maintained XP SP2 would also do. I would advise this group to consider Vista in a year or two, rather than right now.
July 28th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
maybe in a year ot two Vista will close the back door the government is using to spy with.
July 28th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Yeah, I was using xp and tried vista. Both often caused me to pull my hair out. Then I went to osx and macs and my life is sooooo much better. I used to be a big microsoft fan. Apple products including software just seem to work better and I feel like such an idiot for being a microsoft slave all those years.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Problems with Macs
Programs do crash, OSX does crash, and there are viruses for Macs, but some Mac users claim this is not true.
There is no way to change the color of the text on icons
When the dock is big, and the desktop icons are on auto arrange the icons hide under the dock, and you can’t click on them.
Macs come with trial software, but they claim they don’t
Macs don’t come with a simple drawing program (like MS paint)
The Grid spacing is to far apart, and there is no way to change it.
You can’t open bookmarks (at the very top of the screen) in a new tab with the center click.
Apple hardware is overpriced (the cinema display for example).
They hide information from there customers, wail Microsoft is very public about there projects
Not as many hardware options (no tablet PCs, and no internal TV tuners, or internal memory card readers)
You can’t see a thumbnails of videos in a folder.
Macs ask for a password to install programs, and their commercials complain about PCs asking for a password.
When copying a file, or rendering a video, the estimated remaining time never seems to be accurate until it is half way done.
The USB extension cable for the keyboard only works with the apple keyboard.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Jonathon,
You forgot to mention the very best thing about Microsoft: they’ll hire ANYONE to shill for them, even a semi-literate, utterly transparent liar like yourself!
July 28th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I haven’t seen that in 5 years. What’re you on? And I don’t run any anti-crapware software - don’t need it. Occasionally a poorly-written app might just quit. Relaunching immediately is no problem.
Nope, they ask for a password on occasion, like when an installer wants to place system files, but most apps just drag from a disk image into the Applications folder and don’t require a password.
The real paid trolls here are the ones who say they have installed Vista and have had no problems. Besides, when you get a Mac you have the option of running Microcrapware on it too - the last stage in the cure process for those suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I’ll just say how very grateful I am for Windows Vista. It’s a major contributing factor to the increase in Apple’s share price over the last year.
Every Apple supporter should urge Microsoft users to take a good, close look at Vista, and then visit an Apple store. That’s what will get us 100% year-over-year market share gains.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Mac OS X is incredible, rarely does anyone not like it unless they have been hiding from it for years.
My advice is try all the different systems, but be sure you try the Mac and understand how to use it. Mac is not as easy to use as iPod or iPhone, but it’s every bit as impressive if you understand how it works. Windows can’t compare.
What is Microsoft going to do? I think their stock is going to fall before long.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Amen brother! I took one look at Vista Beta 2 and bought a MacBook, then a few months later a Mac Pro! I’m happily OS X’ing away now and loving every second of it.
It’s been a year now and I now own an iPhone and am drulling over the upcoming Leopard update.
Apple/Jobs just “gets” it. Period!
July 28th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Here’s my Vista horror story: http://www.russbrooks.com/2007/6/24/hasta-la-vista
-Russ Brooks Former Microsoft Devotee of 25 Years
July 28th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Vista It Take to install 10 min
it debend how fast and new your PC ..
July 28th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
When its time to get a new computer I will be avoiding anything labeled DRM.
July 28th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
@Jonathan Harchick
Wow! You are a frickin’ Idiot! I don’t even want to waste my time explaining how every single one of your statements solidifies how stupid you really are.
Holy crap you are misinformed!
July 28th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
i dont know whats worse vista or mac users :/
July 28th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
After 8 out of 10 customers this last month kept calling me with one problem or another with Vista I decided to refuse to sell any computer with anything other than XP until Vista has a major Service Pack available - What most of you are forgetting is that computers are suppose to be easy to use. Most mon & pop’s don’t care to be advanced users, they just want what they paid for, a reliable easy to use system that doesn’t cost them an arm & a leg. Why no one isn’t complaining about M$ charging $400 for Vista Ulitmate & $300 for Office is beyone me.. Also, for my customers who has a kids heading to college I only recommend Apple. Of the 12 or so that have bought one I’ve not had one complaint. I’ve not received one call about virus or spyware issues, not one complaint of freezes or hardware compatiblity issues. One did have a fan go bad but had it replaced at an Apple store in one day. ~~ Food For Thought~
July 28th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Lots of M$ astroturf around here…
July 29th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Put as only a mac user could
July 29th, 2007 at 12:32 am
I have actually been quite happy with XP, and I see no reason for me get Vista. Yes, there have been a few little problems now and again with XP, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I must agree that I haven’t heard a single good thing about Vista, which I was expecting.
July 29th, 2007 at 4:17 am
So much back-and-forth nonsense here… I have multiple Windows-using friends; some of them even claim to actually like Windows. That’s fine. I won’t argue with people’s preferences. However, none of them will switch to Vista. Vista is a giant mess and its advantage over XP is no different than Windows ME’s advantage was over Windows 98. That’s right. There’s none.
I’ve also seen some statements about Mac out here that are 10000% false. Again, I don’t mind people’s preferences and it is ok to not like the Mac platform, but at least state the facts. 1) Trial software - There is ONE piece of trial software that has come with my last few Macs. Know what it is? Microsoft Office Test Drive. You know how to delete it? That’s right - throw it in the trash. NO need to “uninstall” anything. 2) Macs ask for username and password just like Vista - NOT true. The only installations that ask for that are ones that write to system libraries. Otherwise, 90% of “installations” are simply dragging applications to your application folder. Nothing gets written to the system and, consequently, nothing sneaks in and starts running in the background. 3) Malware for Macs - Ok, in labs, these do exist. In the wild, they do not. Why not? Because, there has been no easy way to get an infected Mac to continue to infect other Macs. YES, you can get Microsoft Office on Macs to become the carrier to infect other Macs/PCs with Microsoft stuff, but then, that’s more of an MS problem than Apple. When the actual OS can be compromised to the point of turning into a zombie and then zombifying other Macs, then I’ll worry. While labrats show possibilities that do nothing more than get their name in today’s Yahoo article, I am not impressed. 4) Programs crash - Yes, they do. Programs are fallible. Operating systems are fallible. However, when a program crashes, I’ve yet to see it take the OS with it. OS X still runs like a champ. OS X can crash, too, though I’ve only managed to crash it while experimenting with how many OS’s I can run simultaneously (Win98, WinXP, Win311, MacOS 6, C64, N64….). I also had some strange settings on those virtual machines, such as using chip features that my chip may not have had. I’ve since had success keeping them all running without crashes.
If you want to like MS, that’s ok. I’m not advocating you switch to Apple, but please stop with the lies that were hardly true in the 90’s, let alone 2007. And Leopard…. will knock Vista even further into the past.
BTW, to all you Ubuntu advocates…. as soon as I clear some hard drive space, I think that’ll be the next virtual machine I create. I think I finally need to have a look.
July 29th, 2007 at 4:55 am
Sorry-old eyes and numb fingers hit the return instead of the shift. Anyhoo, I was lookin at Macs and was not only very put off by their price, but also by the fact that I don’t want to buy something that doesn’t have the global application that windows has. EVERYONE has windows and in my circles, about the only ones using those goofy macs are the computer nerds who make our lives miserable by writing all these hard to understand and harder to follow directions for programs that I will never use and could care less about. Nope - Windows will have a loyal following for many many years to come because it’s the industry standard, whether you want to believe it or not, and all the whining from tech geeks in the world won’t change that. If you guys really wanted to do something useful instead of complaining, hows about stopping all the stupid spyware bundled with all these fancy “advanced” programs? I’m goin fishin.
July 29th, 2007 at 5:40 am
@ the ol fisherman
This guy is another example of someone spewing FUD, rather than looking objectively. Up until 6 months ago, I was the only Mac user among my friends. We shared many files with each other. Sure, some of our applications were different and we needed the version for our platform, but that was it. We could all listen to the same music files, avi files, mpg files, etc. Macs use all the same standards. It’s Windows that uses proprietary formats nowadays.
Ol Fisherman also mentioned how Mac users make life miserable with “hard to understand and harder to follow dire