Windows Vista: Bill Gates, Burn In Hell!

[Bake]

My wife needed a second computer for her business, so I went and bought one. It came loaded with the all-new, whiz-bang Windows Vista. The first thing I noticed was, there's no "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer" or "My Documents" icon. Where do the files go? How the hell do I know!

Oh. You know how Microsoft tells you that "most programs that run under Windows XP will also run under Vista"? That's from the Microsoft website, by the way. Well, THEY LIED. Drivers don't work. Your favorite software won't work. And there are far too many annoying things (like having to confirm every time you tell it to do something ...) to even begin to list here. Bottom line, the most important program my wife uses in her work, won't work with Vista. So I take the machine back to the store to return it. We simply can't use it. They allowed the return (don't get me started on re-stocking fees; eventually, they unded up not charging me). All the geeks who heard my story just nodded knowingly. "Yeah, don't feel like the Lone Ranger, a lot of folks are having problems with Vista ..."

So here's my theory: they changed everything, made it incompatible with everything, because they (i.e., Microsoft) CAN - they're the 800 ton gorilla, of course - and because they want everyone to have to buy all new software, which only THEY will be able to sell you.

Pardon my rant, but shouldn't an operating system be pretty damn transparent? Shouldn't you have to learn how to run your SOFTWARE, i.e. your APPLICATIONS, rather than the damn OS???? This is one big-assed boondoggle.

Anyone else who cares to share their adventures with Vista, please feel free.

Bake

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Well, so far, my vista adventures have been good. A couple of hints though.

1) There is an option to personalize your desktop with the common icons. It's in the same menu that changing your background is in (and honestly, Windows XP was the same way where you had to tell it to put your "My Computer" etc...icon on the desktop.

2) I'm not Microsoft's biggest fan under the sun but it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for them. When Windows 98 was released, everyone was bitching that a lot programs written for Windows 3.1 didn't work. When Windows XP was release people were bitching that some programs written for Windows 9x didn't work. At the same time everyone wants the operating system re-written from the ground up and made more stable and secure and in doing so, backward compatibility with programs written for the previous OS ALWAYS suffers unless the newest OS was built on code base of the previous one.

3) Drivers are NOT Microsoft's responsibility. Microsoft doesn't write 99.9% of the device drivers. It is the maker of the hardware that is responsible for that. Any device drivers included in the OS are those submitted by the hardware manufacturer and the only real requirements are for the drivers to provide basic functionality of the device and not try to do end runs around the OS to work in order to qualify to be included.


Your complaints are the same ones I have heard when people upgraded from Windows 3.1 to Windows 9x, Windows 9x to Windows XP, and I expect to hear the same thing every time an OS built on a new code base is built. Yeah, it's frustrating, but one of the reasons MS operating systems were so damned unstable for so long was trying to hard to be backward compatible with every of earlier version of Windows.

[zanne]

3. You're the first person to say something nice about Vista.

There's no way I'm getting it until the bugs are worked out or my computer breaks down.

[Deja Q]

5. I hope SP1 clears up all the performance problems... they're atrocious.

People used to expect new releases to be faster. Still do.

Had newer versions of PocketInformant (a PDA datebook utility) been slower than the first one, they'd have gone out of business ages ago. Instead, they IMPROVED the product and not added more sloppily contrived garbage without fixing old problems.

Heck, I recall when Office used to be sold as "a suite of applications that felt and worked the same". To this day, no version of Office apps (e.g. Word 97/Excel 97, Word 2003/Excel 2003) have similar menu structures, in terms of changing options and the like. Some differences are inevitable, but for the basic and COMMON functions to be dispersed differently per application, it's a stupid comment for them to make. (Office 2007 clears this up a bit, mostly because they finally bothered to deal with menu clutter. And I applaud them for doing so, Office 2007 is being grossly maligned... though they could have allowed the Ribbon to be vertically mounted...)

[Deja Q]

4. My 0.0154 euros

1. That is cool

2. True, but Microsoft sets the standard for developers to use. As it is known Microsoft more often fiddles with things to fiddle with competition (this can be traced back to at least their OS/2 days), Microsoft is grossly irresponsible. Consumers have a point here.

3. No, but driver companies should work with Microsoft and I don't mean in a way that forces driver makers to give Microsoft huge slabs of money for a dumb sticker reading "WQHL Certified" either.

Some incompatibility is inevitable. But Microsoft always touts compatibility and uses it to its own advantage (e.g. keeping people from moving to competent other platforms.... even Linux, which is essentially a home-brew hack of any given splintered Unix distro...)

For Microsoft's power and clout, you can bet your sweet bippy they have responsibility. Instead, they choose to blame everybody else, connive situations so people are stuck with them, and then blame the people in the end for not moving up anyway... and that's not when saying "We won't make the previous version work due to (excuse). Buy the new version." It is abuse, it is pressuring, and it's putting a LOT of people into turmoil right now.

[Deja Q]

2. Somebody did a benchmark test between XP and Vista...

Vista is GARBAGE, I don't care what the article writer says.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/
The entire thing is a good read and there are a couple of legitimately good points - but the down points speak for themselves and then some...

[Bake]

6. And good luck trying to buy a new machine with XP!

I got lucky. I found one with XP installed (pretty much the last one they had!), got it up and running in no time, and everything works like it's supposed to.

Microsoft puts their crap out on the market and says, "You vill buy it, und you vill LIKE it. Because ve says so!" For an entity with the sheer monopoly it has, Microsoft owes just a bit of responsibility to the consumers. To the consumers who bought their PREVIOUS batch of sh*t, for example, to continue to support prior versions. But noooooooooooooo ....

At this point, I shouldn't need to buy another computer for a few years. At that point, maybe -- JUST MAYBE -- they'll have the kinks worked out of Vista and the rest of the vendors will have resolved compatibility problems.

Bake