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The VISTA train hit a wall

timeos2

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As part of the annual year end wrap up eWeek sums up what most already know. The totally failed product called VISTA is a colossal mess - equal or greater than the Edsel or "New Coke" in their time. In fact it may be the biggest bust of all as it has almost single-handedly managed to stop the previously never ending growth of Windows as the OS of choice and opened the door at last to options. Perhaps we should be praising it for that accomplishment even as we have no sorrow over it's demise. We've been held back by Windows for over a decade so this hasn't happened a moment too soon.

I only pity those that, like a naive first time timeshare guest, bought into the hype and the promise. They will be hampered even worse than the average Windows user by buggy, bloated software and unknown pc ailments until they finally more on, just as those poor Windows Millennium (the previous low water mark) users were before them.
 

EZ-ED

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Windows 7 (the Vista replacement) is just a tweaked version of Vista so there is no real hope in the Vista replacement I've been waiting for and downgrading a PC that was shipped with Vista to Windows XP may cause problems with incompatible drivers for video, audio, cd and dvd devices that were designed for Vista.

Maybe a Acer XP Netbook that can handle a flat panel display and with a powered USB 4 port hub that can support mouse, keyboard and external cd/dvd player is the way to go.
 

Mosca

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I think that Vista itself is just fine. What sucked was the way it was first introduced, in a crippled form for machines that weren't powerful enough and without proper driver support for existing peripherals. The ensuing media frenzy, egged on by Apple, gave the OS itself a bad rap (which should go only to Microsoft, for the bad decision making).

Vista is better than XP. And XP was pretty good.
 

geekette

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Peripheral support is the responsibility of the manufacturer of the peripheral, not Microsoft. Vista was in development for a long time; manufacturers had time to create drivers for the new OS.
 

AwayWeGo

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[triennial - points]
Whoa! I'm Glad We Went With Mac Mini Before We Got Wrapped Around The Vista Axle.

As part of the annual year end wrap up eWeek sums up what most already know. The totally failed product called VISTA is a colossal mess - equal or greater than the Edsel or "New Coke" in their time. In fact it may be the biggest bust of all as it has almost single-handedly managed to stop the previously never ending growth of Windows as the OS of choice and opened the door at last to options. Perhaps we should be praising it for that accomplishment even as we have no sorrow over it's demise. We've been held back by Windows for over a decade so this hasn't happened a moment too soon.

I only pity those that, like a naive first time timeshare guest, bought into the hype and the promise. They will be hampered even worse than the average Windows user by buggy, bloated software and unknown pc ailments until they finally more on, just as those poor Windows Millennium (the previous low water mark) users were before them.
I've been enjoying our semi-new Mac Mini for several months now, never realizing when our son installed it for us that it would combine the advantages of (a) a new home computer with (b) not having to deal with Windows Vista.

I made a semi-disparaging comment about Vista recently, based on nothing much other than those clever Mac-PC commercials on TV. The guy I made the remark to replied (without attitude or defensiveness -- he's that kind of guy) that he finds Vistas to be pretty slick, that he specially likes what it lets him do with digital pictures, & that he hasn't had any problems with it. Bottom line = He likes it.

I'm still catching on to Mac Mini, & there is hope that my main gripe will soon be overcome. As a dyed-in-the-wool WordPerfect user for word processing, I have been dissatisfied bigtime with MS Word For Mac & equally so with AbiWord. I recently downloaded Open Office Dot Org & even if its word processor is no match for WordPerfect, I am optimistic it will be an improvement over MS Word For Mac & AbiWord. We'll see, eh ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

rickandcindy23

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As a dyed-in-the-wool WordPerfect user for word processing, I have been dissatisfied bigtime with MS Word For Mac & equally so with AbiWord. I recently downloaded Open Office Dot Org & even if its word processor is no match for WordPerfect, I am optimistic it will be an improvement over MS Word For Mac & AbiWord. We'll see, eh ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

Alan, I am another WordPerfect fan and don't like Word at all, but Word is what is generally accepted and sent via emails and the like. Even my eleven-year-old version of WordPerfect is better than my 2003 Word. I love owning my own copy and inserting that CD into the drive for all of the forms and clipart. I try to use my 2003 disk of Word to get to the "forms" and cannot get anywhere with it. Piece of crap software!
 

GetawaysRus

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There is a dilemma here. And I suspect that I am not the only one thinking this....

I'm using an older PC (probably 8 years old - it's got a Pentium 3-800 CPU.). I'm not a gamer, but the thing is showing its age. I've added more RAM and defragment the hard drive regularly. I upgraded the original OS (which was Windows 98) to XP long ago. Earlier this week I was (again) putzing around in the StartUp folder and eliminating all but the most essential StartUp programs to try to reduce the overhead on boot up so that I'm not waiting an eternity for this computer to be ready for me.

So I'm long overdue for an upgrade to a new PC. Prices have dropped to the point that a very powerful PC can be had for a very attractive price. What's holding me up, though, is that every time that I start thinking about a new computer purchase, along comes another article in a computer magazine or on the Web that blasts Vista. Also, I just hate the thought of having to go out and hunt for Vista drivers for some of my older peripherals. The time involved in setting up a new PC is substantial.

Right now everything on this old computer works, but it sure seems to be getting slower and slower. I've kept this computer far longer than my first PC (who remembers the 486 chip?) and my second PC (which had a Pentium chip). Am I crazy for waiting, or should I (and others like me) just go ahead and take the plunge and get a new PC with Vista installed?

(And yes, I also miss WordPerfect. Bring back WordPerfect version 6.x for Windows. That was a fabulous word processor. Word can be a pain in the b...tt sometimes.)
 
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Passepartout

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Right now everything on this old computer works, but it sure seems to be getting slower and slower. I've kept this computer far longer than my first PC (who remembers the 486 chip?) and my second PC (which had a Pentium chip). Am I crazy for waiting, or should I (and others like me) just go ahead and take the plunge and get a new PC with Vista installed?

So get one of the new Acer Aspire Ones with XP, 6-cell battery and 160 GB hard drive. Or go to your neighborhood computer store and get a year old used desktop with XP. Or build a new one and buy a copy of XP to put on it.

I am not rushing out to buy a Vista machine either, but have a fairly late XP laptop and my minibook with Linux.

Oh, and my first computer was from Radio Shack with an 8086 processor and 5 1/4" and 3.5" floppies and no hard drive.

Jim Ricks
 

Brett

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I think that Vista itself is just fine. What sucked was the way it was first introduced, in a crippled form for machines that weren't powerful enough and without proper driver support for existing peripherals. The ensuing media frenzy, egged on by Apple, gave the OS itself a bad rap (which should go only to Microsoft, for the bad decision making).
Vista is better than XP. And XP was pretty good.

Vista has worked fine in my eMachines computer this past year - quick start-up and no problems running older programs.
 

timeos2

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Right now everything on this old computer works, but it sure seems to be getting slower and slower. I've kept this computer far longer than my first PC (who remembers the 486 chip?) and my second PC (which had a Pentium chip). Am I crazy for waiting, or should I (and others like me) just go ahead and take the plunge and get a new PC with Vista installed?

Don't buy a new PC that forces you to take Vista. Yes, it can work as a few noted here, but why buy two or three times the hardware to run barely as fast as XP and put up with 20 or 30 irritating and useless "do you want to?" messages everyday? Just go to a local shop that builds PC's as they can still get a new copy of XP and install it on new hardware. And then you take advantage of the faster speeds of the CPU's, bigger hard drives and cheap RAM that XP benefits from, while Vista sucks it all up in needless overhead.

As I said our ever improving hardware has been held back for a decade by the bloated and ever growing Windows. Finally people (and far more importantly in the long term, companies) are recognizing that Windows isn't necessary as more and more of computing simply needs reliable access to the Internet. That's how Apple, Linux, Google and many others are moving ahead of the stagnant, always playing catch up Windows platform. Heck even Walmart sells an inexpensive, non-Windows PC to the masses and it works! Maybe the truly independent and innovative software manufacturers like WordPerfect or the old Borland will have new counterparts as quality and focus take precedence over "works with Windows".
 

Nancy

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Happy

I was very worried about vista, especially Vista 64 bit, but I've had my new computer a couple of weeks and really like it. I've found a couple of programs that don't work in 64 bit, but have found a work around.

Nancy
 

Mosca

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Don't buy a new PC that forces you to take Vista. Yes, it can work as a few noted here, but why buy two or three times the hardware to run barely as fast as XP and put up with 20 or 30 irritating and useless "do you want to?" messages everyday? Just go to a local shop that builds PC's as they can still get a new copy of XP and install it on new hardware. And then you take advantage of the faster speeds of the CPU's, bigger hard drives and cheap RAM that XP benefits from, while Vista sucks it all up in needless overhead.

As I said our ever improving hardware has been held back for a decade by the bloated and ever growing Windows. Finally people (and far more importantly in the long term, companies) are recognizing that Windows isn't necessary as more and more of computing simply needs reliable access to the Internet. That's how Apple, Linux, Google and many others are moving ahead of the stagnant, always playing catch up Windows platform. Heck even Walmart sells an inexpensive, non-Windows PC to the masses and it works! Maybe the truly independent and innovative software manufacturers like WordPerfect or the old Borland will have new counterparts as quality and focus take precedence over "works with Windows".

Just turn off the "do you want to"s. I did it on day one.

I turn the computer on, have it work with no issues, and turn it off. I find it unfathomable that anyone would think there was something wrong with that. I know my way around these things a bit, both hardware and software. Vista works just fine.
 

laura1957

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Just turn off the "do you want to"s. I did it on day one.

I turn the computer on, have it work with no issues, and turn it off. I find it unfathomable that anyone would think there was something wrong with that. I know my way around these things a bit, both hardware and software. Vista works just fine.


:whoopie: That is really great news - I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me because I have had NO problems with Vista!!
 

bogey21

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Vista caused all kinds of issues when I first started using it in my new laptop almost exactly one year ago today. Either they are gradually fixing it; or I am gradually making adjustments; or I am just getting used to it (probably a little of each) but it is not nearly as distracting as it was a year ago.

George
 

BevL

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I hate Vista

We were unable to buy a new computer here in Canada without Vista, so we bought a new laptop with Vista. After about three days, I was ready to throw it in the middle of the road. It simply didn't work with the software I have to use for work. So we paid to take it in, have it wiped clean and XP put on.

Hubby and I both have new computers so we're hoping that will do us for a while.
 

Icarus

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I'm not pro-vista at all, but I don't think it's quite as bad as John says it is. I do agree that it's been a disaster for Microsoft.

Still, I don't have it on any of my windows computers, old or new. When I bought my Dell XPS M1330, it came with Vista, but I installed XP Pro on it. I never even booted Vista on it.

Yeah, if you have old peripherals (scanners, printers, cameras, etc) you should check first if drivers are available for Vista for those devices.

You can still buy new computers with XP, and that's been extended again for another 6 months. At this point, you have to pay extra for it. Is it worth for it the average user if you don't have a driver or software compatibility issue? I don't know, you have to decide that for yourself.

As for UAC (the feature that asks for permission to do anything priviledged), you can turn that off if you really want to, but unless you are an expert, I don't recommend turning it off. I have a software firewall on XP (Comodo) that effectively does the same thing as UAC. Yeah, it's annoying there also, but it will stop a rogue program from doing things that it shouldn't.

Bev, it's too late for you now, but Dell still sells new computers with XP. I don't know why they wouldn't do that in Canada also, but I haven't checked the Canadian web site. Most of the others, including Lenovo, also sell new computers with XP. I haven't bothered to check HP, but I'd be surprised if they didn't.

BTW, my ex-wife got a new Dell Studio laptop computer for my daughter for xmas. It came with Vista Home Premium, of course, and I helped set it up. It really wasn't all that bad. If I had a chance to de-crapify it, it might have actually run at a decent speed. It was loaded with things like the google desktop and a bunch of sidebar gadgets, and I didn't remove any of that stuff, because it wasn't my computer. I just did all the security and software updates, installed a free A/V, and installed itunes on it and copied over our itunes library to it so my daughter would have it with her.

-David
 
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Glynda

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Vista

I was very worried about vista, especially Vista 64 bit, but I've had my new computer a couple of weeks and really like it. I've found a couple of programs that don't work in 64 bit, but have found a work around.

Nancy

I've had it for over a year and have had no problems. I'm not a computer expert and perhaps things are happening I'm not aware of, but it seems to be just fine.
 

Glynda

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BTW, my ex-wife got a new Dell Studio laptop computer for my daughter for xmas. It came with Vista Home Premium, of course, and I helped set it up. It really wasn't all that bad. If I had a chance to de-crapify it, it might have actually run at a decent speed. It was loaded with things like the google desktop and a bunch of sidebar gadgets, and I didn't remove any of that stuff, because it wasn't my computer. I just did all the security and software updates, installed a free A/V, and installed itunes on it and copied over our itunes library to it so my daughter would have it with her.

-David

The sidebar gadgets certainly take longer to load but I love them. I have the clock, calendar, three cities' weather reports and a slide show of photos. I really enjoy checking them out.
 

Nancy

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Sidebar

I like the sidebar also. I also like the speed that my computer boots up compared to my 2 old XP models.

Nancy
 

Icarus

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I like the sidebar also. I also like the speed that my computer boots up compared to my 2 old XP models.

Nancy

Yeah, well, that's the thing. Out of the box, it wasn't very fast. And when I installed the security updates, the shutdown/reboots were both very slow. My XP machines shutdown and reboot much faster than this machine does. And it wasn't an insignificant difference.

Like I said, I didn't get a chance to optimize it, remove the crapware and optimize the services, but that out of box experience was not great.

It certainly wasn't the hardware, since it has plenty of memory and a fast modern dual core processor.

I'm sure, given the time with it, and if it was my machine, I could have solved that too.

-David
 
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