Windows Vista sucks

[JLTucker]

I got a new computer today with Vista pre-loaded on it. I played around with it for about an hour and formatted. Utterly disgusting. I do not want a visually advanced operating system. 10gb+ for an OS? That is retarded.

[Stark]

However, my Mac Mini is an example of a currently shipping Mac that runs OS X in a manner somewhat akin (at times) to Windows 95 on a 386.

You say 'currently shipping', but I remember looking at Mini's some time ago and hearing that the stock item didn't have enough RAM to run OSX properly. I believe they've buffed the base model now. How much RAM does your unit have? I use a laptop with 512Mb all the time and it runs OSX fine.

[InnocentBystander]

You realize that is less than $5 worth in space, right?

[RThurmont]

I believe they've buffed the base model now. How much RAM does your unit have? I use a laptop with 512Mb all the time and it runs OSX fine.

512, IIRC, with a 1.66 mhz Core Duo. That such a machine gets frequent slowdowns when using OS X (by far the biggest contributor is Safari) is, to me, an example of why OS X is bloatware.

You realize that is less than $5 worth in space, right?

Yes, but why should an OS take up that much? XP didn't take up that much, and there are Linux distros that take up 50 mb. If you're talking about a laptop user, many laptops have 40 GB HDs (which is not a bad idea IMO as they discourage people from storing lots of data on laptops, reducing the risk that data will be lost in the event of droppage), and Vista instantly eats up 25% of that. IMO that's a waste.

[Xon]

A non-tivial chunk of that 10gb is the automatic system restore and "previous versions" software which automatically version your freaking drive to reduce data lose when you delete something. That and the page file and hibernation file (thats easily 2-4gb right there) which are programmically created on demand.

[Battlehymn Republic]

"The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history". Has anyone heard of or read this yet?

[Darth Wong]

I've said this many times before, but it remains true: Hollywood is the tail that is wagging the IT industry dog. Its sales are a miniscule fraction of the size of the computer industry, yet the entire computer industry is being forced to bend over and take it up the ass in order to protect Hollywood's profit margin. This is like fucking all of the major automakers in order to protect the profits of the tire manufacturers.

[RThurmont]

"The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history". Has anyone heard of or read this yet?

Yes, and the general consensus is that its a classic example of FUD. However, the architectonic of it, that Vista is bad because of its DRM, is largely accurate.

IMO, Vista could be a great operating system, were it not for the DRM, and the massive amounts of bloat and legacy features that Microsoft has left in. Vista has terrible backwards compatibility, and I can't help but wonder if Microsoft wouldn't've been better off completely disregarding backwards compatibility, and all that legacy code, and shipping Vista in say, 2003.

[SirNitram]

The DRM schemes for Vista and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD hardware are so absurdly vunerable it's silly. All it'll take is one jackass who wants to cause havoc to get the hardware 'keys' to lots of common hardware revoked, resulting in massive chaos. The more outdated the hardware, the more chaos.

[Stark]

512, IIRC, with a 1.66 mhz Core Duo. That such a machine gets frequent slowdowns when using OS X (by far the biggest contributor is Safari) is, to me, an example of why OS X is bloatware.

Do you use Safari as a browser? When I was looking at Minis I heard that Safari can bloat so I use Firefox instead. The laptop is never turned off aside from updates and works fine after hours and hours of media streaming and web use.. It's even an older, PowerPC model.

[RThurmont]

Yeah, I think that when people start getting permanently locked out of their hardware on Vista, that's going to be what really pushes people off the Windows platform, for good. Inevitably, keys will be leaked, and drivers will be revoked, and new drivers will not be released for "legacy" hardware.

To some extent, this is arguably Microsoft pandering to both Hollywood and to hardware makers, who would naturally see sales of new hardware increase as a result of this. However, evidence suggests that computer makers are more pro Linux now than ever, with Dell getting several of its products Linux-certified, and HP, IBM, Sony, and others really heavily investing in Linux organizations such as the OIN and the OSDL.

[SirNitram]

Yeah, I think that when people start getting permanently locked out of their hardware on Vista, that's going to be what really pushes people off the Windows platform, for good. Inevitably, keys will be leaked, and drivers will be revoked, and new drivers will not be released for "legacy" hardware.

To some extent, this is arguably Microsoft pandering to both Hollywood and to hardware makers, who would naturally see sales of new hardware increase as a result of this. However, evidence suggests that computer makers are more pro Linux now than ever, with Dell getting several of its products Linux-certified, and HP, IBM, Sony, and others really heavily investing in Linux organizations such as the OIN and the OSDL.

The first shot has been fired, actually. Remember, PowerDVD was already used to crack the vaunted encryption of the next-gen HD content, and if memory serves, the nature of the crack allows you to view it on Vista illegitimately.. Which is damned hard to do legitimately so far. From what I know of it, it's impossible to shut the hole without destroying software players.

Hardware players are the biggest losers, I'd say, because one's already embroiled in a class-action lawsuit because they claimed 'Vista Ready', and surprise, sur-prise, the new driver requirements mean they aren't. ANd I can bet the buck-passing will be in full force to the hardware developers should some hacker decide it's time to humble the giant and exercise the 'nuclear option' of leaking hardware keys, wiping masses of computers off of operational time.

Could it destroy Window's market dominance? Maybe. We'll see. What I do beleive is DRM is coming towards it's massive battle at a fevered pitch. With Vista looking over it's own shoulder constantly, you really can't design a more paranoid system. Which means that either people will accept it, and the digital future is locked down, or all hell breaks loose and Hollywood's old model is going to start crumbling when the electronics industry finally finds it's balls to say 'No'.

[RThurmont]

Note that I just found another reason to hate Vista, that doesn't seem to be very well publicized: with OEM copies of Vista, with the exception of Vista Enterprise, you can only downgrade to XP Pro, XP Tablet PC Edition, or XP 64. XP, while not as bad as Vista, also has mucho DRM, and sucks, for that reason, IMO. Also making matters worse, the downgrade rights only apply to the Business and Ultimate versions of Vista, meaning that if you, like many consumers, make the mistake of buying a PC preloaded with Vista Home Premium or Home Basic, you're stuck with Vista.

Thus, its going to be really important when buying a new PC this year to make sure you buy it without an operating system preloaded, or else you'll have to reject the EULA and spend several hours on the phone with the manufacturer to convince them to refund you the license fee.

[Netko]

Or, you can enjoy Vista. Duh. It ain't the incarnation of the Devil as you're painting it here. And if you need downgrade right for home use, you are either an ideologue or you fucked up badly on the hardware selection - something that will be impossible to go within a year as manufacturers get drivers in place for Vista - coincidently, that is also the way most consumers will get Vista - buying a new computer.

[Crayz9000]

Netko,

If "enjoy" is doublespeak for "pull out my own teeth with a rusty pair of pliars," then yes, I certainly have enjoyed my experiences with Vista thus far.

Its annoyances for me have far outweighed any potential benefits it may hold. I will not use it for myself as I have a far superior OS in the form of Linux. I will strongly recommend against it to anyone I know -- if they need a new computer, a Mac is a far better option in every single fucking regard, except perhaps for application compatibility, in which case you're fucked either way so you may as well go for the route that I can guarantee will be more painless in the long run.

[Zac Naloen]

I've been using Vista for about two weeks, I'm still looking for these difficulties people keep describing.

Computer runs faster, windows runs faster.. everything runs better.

It even runs all my old software and hardware with no difficulty.

And Thurmont, you keep saying that Vista has terrible backwards compatibility.. is this compared to Mac OSX that doesn't even tell you when the software your trying to run isn't designed for that version of OSX it just sorta runs.. and does nothing and doesn't tell you why? For something that is supposed to be easy and intuitive it certainly seems to confuse many IT newbs i've encountered.

At least Vista dares tell you when something isn't designed for that operating system.

[General Zod]

Note that I just found another reason to hate Vista, that doesn't seem to be very well publicized: with OEM copies of Vista, with the exception of Vista Enterprise, you can only downgrade to XP Pro, XP Tablet PC Edition, or XP 64. XP, while not as bad as Vista, also has mucho DRM, and sucks, for that reason, IMO. Also making matters worse, the downgrade rights only apply to the Business and Ultimate versions of Vista, meaning that if you, like many consumers, make the mistake of buying a PC preloaded with Vista Home Premium or Home Basic, you're stuck with Vista.

Thus, its going to be really important when buying a new PC this year to make sure you buy it without an operating system preloaded, or else you'll have to reject the EULA and spend several hours on the phone with the manufacturer to convince them to refund you the license fee.

DRM on Windows XP? Huh? Aside from the obvious activate your OS when you install a new version, I've never encountered any DRM issues running Windows XP.

[SirNitram]

Or, you can enjoy Vista. Duh. It ain't the incarnation of the Devil as you're painting it here. And if you need downgrade right for home use, you are either an ideologue or you fucked up badly on the hardware selection - something that will be impossible to go within a year as manufacturers get drivers in place for Vista - coincidently, that is also the way most consumers will get Vista - buying a new computer.

Guess what? MAny consumers have done such. And many customers are finding things don't work on it.

Like a typical retard, you exagerrate the point to the absurd 'The incarnation of the devil!' and then whine it's usable. Of course it's usable, to a point. So was Windows 3.1.0, to a point. The fact it reformated drives on bootup and crashed systems was just an example of bad software, which is fundamentally what Vista is.

And 'enjoy' Vista? What sort of idiot 'enjoys' an OS?

[Netko]

OK, I may have overdone it with the Devil comment, but some of the criticisms are exaggerating in the other direction. Like the DRM scare - unless you have protected content, in which case you need that system to play it at all, its an inert system that doesn't use any resources, excepting a couple of cases - and it really isn't anything but implementing the content industries newest standards, something that was also done in XP (SPDIF out disablement, Macrovision support, protected audio path, acknowledgment of content flags in broadcast content for Media Center etc.), and yet nobody was criticizing Microsoft back then for it, nowhere near this level, and now suddenly Vista's DRM subsystem, which is as intrusive as those mentioned for XP (ie none if you don't need the capability) is suddenly a big problem. The software player key revocation is also not a problem, like all software you can fix it with an update.

And Vista is very usable unless you have driver problems. Which is what I acknowledge in every post, including the last one (hardware selection), and which will "fix itself" in due time. Can you please show me a link to the "reformated drives on bootup and crashed systems" which isn't a case of bad drivers but intrinsic to Vista?

Is it possible that individual OEMs fucked up their rollout? Yes, of course, but again this isn't an intrinsic problem with Vista, but with those companies and their hardware choices. I've so far installed it on 3 computers, from very old (non-XP Athlon) to new (Turion laptop) and I've yet to encounter a real problem, and I'm guessing thats the situation with most people.

People are acting like those kind of problems didn't happen on earlier OS transitions, yet they have (I had to junk a printer that didn't work on XP for example, and lets not go into all the Win95 or especially DOS games that don't work without elaborate workarounds or at all) and, for me at least, Vista's transition has actually been the smoothest.

As for enjoyment, meh, formulate that in whatever way you want. I'm not saying you should play with opening windows for fun, I meant just that using the Vista UI when you have to is more enjoyable (or simpler, or less frustrating, or whatever) then XPs because of enhancements in the former compared to the latter. And Vista (when the drivers are in order) is probably the most enjoyable OS (in that specific sense) for me so far (note: I haven't tried OS X for a length of time to form an opinion nor the new 3d composited Linux desktops).

[Uraniun235]

If the computer industry wasn't willing to accomodate Hollywood, Hollywood could well simply shrug and live with no legitimate HD playback on home computers. It's not that big a market compared to the people who use set-top players.

Could it destroy Windows' market dominance? Maybe. We'll see. What I do beleive is DRM is coming towards it's massive battle at a fevered pitch. With Vista looking over it's own shoulder constantly, you really can't design a more paranoid system. Which means that either people will accept it, and the digital future is locked down, or all hell breaks loose and Hollywood's old model is going to start crumbling when the electronics industry finally finds it's balls to say 'No'.

(I fixed Window's to Windows' because that was driving me insane.)

How would DRM destroy Microsoft dominance? This seems to be based on a number of very shaky assumptions (let me know if I'm wrong here):

1) Home users, most of which like to check email and look for airfare on that there internet dealie, are going to care about DRM restrictions. So much so, in fact, that they will abandon a system they are familiar with, a system that in all likelihood will have come preinstalled on their computer, for something entirely New.

2) A significant proportion of home users will actually want to view "protected content" via their home computers, and will run into difficulties doing so.

So far, the major source of "protected content" that anyone is going to want to see is going to be high-definition video - and yet in this very forum for the past few months we've all been chattering about how Joe Average just isn't going to care about high-def and how whoever wins the format war isn't winning much because it'll probably occupy a niche market position anyway.

Heck, how many people watch DVDs on their computers? Quite a few, but how many of those again would feel compelled to abandon Windows if they couldn't? And is that number statistically significant?

3) Corporate America - where Microsoft really makes its big bucks, with the iron fist of Exchange Server (i.e. Outlook) and Office 200x and server Client Access Licenses - is really going to care that their employees' workstations have a bunch of code in place to prevent "protected content" from being viewed on "non-trusted hardware".


There are other decisions which Microsoft makes and other philosophies to which they subscribe which may one day lead to their downfall, but I don't think DRM compliance is a significant one.

[K. A. Pital]

Heck, how many people watch DVDs on their computers? Quite a few, but how many of those again would feel compelled to abandon Windows if they couldn't? And is that number statistically significant?

I believe for DVDs, the number is high enough to trigger a bad-word effect. Then it depends on the reaction of Microsoft.

The badword effect is pretty bad, if it's genuine. Like, if a real Joe Average tells anohter total Joe Average that he couldn't watch his movies on Windows, this can spread very quickly.

Or not. It's a shaky assumption, yes.

[Uraniun235]

Heck, how many people watch DVDs on their computers? Quite a few, but how many of those again would feel compelled to abandon Windows if they couldn't? And is that number statistically significant?

I believe for DVDs, the number is high enough to trigger a bad-word effect. Then it depends on the reaction of Microsoft.

The badword effect is pretty bad, if it's genuine. Like, if a real Joe Average tells anohter total Joe Average that he couldn't watch his movies on Windows, this can spread very quickly.

Or not. It's a shaky assumption, yes.

For DVDs, yes, it's that way now - but DVDs have now been out for fully a decade, and further, they've become the standard movie format.

High-definition video is still very much a very minor niche, and from what I hear could very well remain a niche market - and further, the high-def drives are still very expensive. Thus the number of people who seriously want to view HD movies on their PC will be for some time a niche of a niche - not very significant.

[Darth Wong]

Microsoft has specialized for years in making an OS which pisses you off just enough to be a pain in the ass, but not enough to push people off their perch and try something else en masse.

[RThurmont]

Before I begin, I need to say that for some reason, when I was browsing this thread last night, there were some posts that were not visible, which are visible now, so either I'm going crazy (the likely answer), or there was some kind of glitch. As a result, I'm going to reply to a few items that were posted before my previous reply.

Do you use Safari as a browser? When I was looking at Minis I heard that Safari can bloat so I use Firefox instead. The laptop is never turned off aside from updates and works fine after hours and hours of media streaming and web use.. It's even an older, PowerPC model.

I like to use Safari, but often, due to the above reasons, I use Opera, as Opera won't slow my entire system down when I have more than five or six tabs open (and it has a better UI at any rate).

Hardware players are the biggest losers, I'd say, because one's already embroiled in a class-action lawsuit because they claimed 'Vista Ready', and surprise, sur-prise, the new driver requirements mean they aren't.

Actually you know, that's valid, and it also explains why every OEM suddenly seems that much more interested in Linux.

And Thurmont, you keep saying that Vista has terrible backwards compatibility.. is this compared to Mac OSX that doesn't even tell you when the software your trying to run isn't designed for that version of OSX it just sorta runs.. and does nothing and doesn't tell you why? For something that is supposed to be easy and intuitive it certainly seems to confuse many IT newbs i've encountered.

Woah...I'm not the one on this thread evangelizing OS X as a platform, in fact, throughout the thread, I've repeatedly bashed it for being sluggish bloatware.

And if you need downgrade right for home use, you are either an ideologue or you fucked up badly on the hardware selection

Or you merely are an individual who does not want to run the risk of being locked out of their hardware, having their software remotely uninstalled, or being otherwised victimized by Vista's DRM.

[K. A. Pital]

Actually you know, that's valid, and it also explains why every OEM suddenly seems that much more interested in Linux.

Good call. A very good call. And yes, there are few people who want to be locked out of hardware. And neither does hardware like to be locked out of software, either.