Whats so bad about Vista?

Windows 7 was pretty good out of the box though. If you have 7, then Vista will feel slow. Decent as it is now, it deserved the hate it got at launch. That hate is no longer deserved though.

 

LOL I was looking for this thread, couldn't find it via search.

How bad is Vista? It's pretty bad unless you work for MS. I recently reinstalled Vista on A Tosh laptop with decent hardware. In fact it shipped with Vista 64 and I had to get some stuff off of it, the reason for the reinstall.

It's bad, really. Programs take longer to load, the start menu has a lag to it, superfetch goes nuts. I went back to Windows 7 64 bit on the same laptop and it flies. No lag, programs open much quicker. Overall it's just a more polished version of Vista and I really don't care if it is. For me the bottom line is not once since i've owned and used Windows 7 did I want to take it off my system. It looks good, runs well and was super stable right out of the box.

 

I had to use my moms laptop the other day, she's running Vista Home Basic on an Intel T4300, 3GB's DDR2, and a 7200rpm HDD. It was soooo SLOW.

It was pretty crazy slow in comparison to my MSI. It felt much slower than even my brothers Lenovo G556 with Windows 7, Intel P6200, 2GB DDR3, 5400rpm HDD.

 

nothing
i never had a problem with it

 

Hmmmm, I have 7 on a few computers now, and vista on a couple, other than the fact the hardware on my win7 notebook is newer and faster, the os'es work the same, 7 is a bit prettier. but overall, they are the same. Once I get an ssd put in my vista machine, all will be good! I will only be using ssd from now on for os+programs, thats the big ticket there, not os.

Once putting a ssd in my timeline, its sooooo fast now!

 

The problems with Vista were:

1. XP was about 5 years old when Vista came out, so people were very much used to XP and didn't want to change.

2. Hardware manufacturers drivers were premature and not stable. I think nVidia graphics crashes occured something like 133% more on Vista or something than on XP.

3. Ten year old printers, keyboards, etc. lost support, pissing a lot of people off.

4. People tried installing Vista on 4-5 year old hardware. Part of this was Microsoft's fault because the way they advertised made it sound like Vista sped computers up, any computer that had 512mb of ram or more could run it, etc.

5. A lot of features that sucked up memory were put on by default. Aero, widgets, etc.

6. Besides DX10, no real benefit over XP except for a couple nice UI features and eyecandy.

7. The fact that by default, Windows asked if you were sure you wanted to open every program.

8. Momentum of hate. Even SP1 and SP2 that made Vista a decent OS couldn't stop the momentum of bad press.

And then came Windows 7, probably the best version of Windows for it's time since XP.

 

Worst part about Vista is definately the local area only thing. I still see many many Vista computers and many of them don't seem to work with mobile hotspots or phone mobile hotspots. Yes ipv6 is disabled.

 

I heard that Vista is not energy efficient compared to Windows 7. This means that your hardware is busy running Vista while it should be busy pumping out more FPS.

 

Nothing, I still use it and like it.

 

The biggest problems I experienced personally with Vista was:

A) Buggy display drivers

Crysis would always crash on my Nvidia chipset even though my hardware was sufficent enough to play it at the time on medium settings. Anyone who has ran Vista on a Nvidia card has gotten the dreaded "The driver nvdklm has stopped responding" message one time or another.

B) Random memory leak issues

Running Windows Update or copying large files through the network would spike my memory usage through the roof, on my quad core 6GB machine at the time causing stability issues. Windows Explorer would often crash as a result.

C) Windows Update (the worst of them all).

I hated Windows Update the most. I could do absolutely no tweaks (factory default) and run a Windows Update and it would fail at one point or another. The worst part is when you get stuck in that dreaded "configuring updates" loop and the machine infinitely reboots. Other times it causes a blue screen while updates are installing and some updates just fail to install altogether. Windows Update sucks big time on Vista.

 

Hmm...

Point A) Complaint to the driver vendor, in this case, NVidia. (PS: The short time that I used my NVidia card, I didn't get that error - or don't remember it. But I only used it a month or two before I stopped due to the solder issue. I try to keep it for when I really need it.)

Point B) There shouldn't be a memory leak - at least I have never seen one on my laptop. But even if that were the case, Vista should not become unstable during heavy RAM use. In fact, I have happily scrapped along the maximum amount usable on my laptop without issues. It makes me think there was another problem there - though I can't say what.

C) Never had an infinite reboot loop. But then again, when people think they know an OS with 3 million lines of code better than the manufacturer, something is wrong anyway
Why "tweak" something you don't understand? In most cases, it is always best to leave an OS the way it is. Even Linux apparently now has that problem that it is getting to complex for one person to understand as a whole.
Just use it, so again, I would put the blame "in your camp" and not on Vista.
(Besides, Windows 7 or 8 are the same in this respect. The fact that you can change a setting, doesn't mean you should. And in many cases that functionality is there to troubleshoot problems, or resolve problems.)

 

A big problem with the 64-bit version was driver support. Companies really dragged their feet on that one.

But really, dual boot XP and Vista and you will see that Vista is a lot better. The only real problem with Vista compared to XP is that Vista uses more resources and doesn't feel as snappy. Security, stability, and compatibility wise though, Vista just seems far superior.

I remember when all the Vista hate was going on and I believed it all. Then I got two licenses for Vista Ultimate, and I found out for myself that all the hate was unwarranted.

 

My problem with all of the above is that I recently reinstalled Vista on the notebook that came with Vista 64 and had pretty decent hardware. I had to reinstall it cause I needed some files I had burned on the image.

I quickly noticed it was as bad (i.e. slow, bogged down and annoying) as when I quickly left it for Windows 7 64.

 

For A: Yes you are correct many did complain to Nvidia and they did indeed fix the problem. Now that Vista has been out for a while compatibility has certainly gotten better.

For B: The memory leak was solved when I migrated to Server 2008 which is the very stable server variant of Vista. Service Pack 2 also resolved a lot of things within this issue.

For C: I can't explain this one per say but I can tell you that when you perform Windows Updates its best to not install or do anything else while it is installing updates because you could run into problems. If I do not browse around the PC while its installing updates then everything goes smoothly.

As I said these are problems I have ran into during the history of running Vista as an OS. I currently run Windows Server 2008 as a hybrid server/workstation and it works absolutely great. It has been my preferred OS for the past 3 years now.

There are a few features from Vista that are missing such as Media Center but I have never really used Media Center anyways and I find 2008 is smoother as a result of the missing DRM and Media features that bogs Vista down just slightly.

Server 2008 has a modular design which is very nice at keeping only the features that you need and will use. Even after I have fully configured 2008 to a desktop the end result was still about roughly 40 services less installed on 2008 than Vista. Sure they may share the same codebase, but 40 less services is 40 less services. This equates to more performance. I am aware of vlite which can strip out media center and stuff, but then in essence you are just left with a dumb down Vista home basic with Aero.

I have also gotten a few workstation features from Vista to work on Server 2008 such as System Restore, Games Explorer, WinSAT assessment tool, Superfetch, Aero, Media Codecs, as well as common anti-virus solutions such as Avira, Avast, Microsoft Security Essentials, and what not. For the most part everything works great and I find it to be a little more responsive than Vista. Keep in mind there are discrepancies due to the fact that 2008 is missing some features from Vista. All I can say is it runs great.

 

I've been using my computer while installing updates most of the times, never any issues...
But I suppose that will be a while debate...

And a Server OS brings its own problems - e.g. MSE won't run as it will recognize it as a Server... you need Forefront.

 

During my time with Vista, I was dissatisfied with it, and the wait that I had to endure before getting it. I personally thought Vista wasn't that 'sturdy' of an operating system, rather just a quick gilded approach to advancing the ancient Windows XP.

I don't know why it happened, but my vista laptop and desktop, they began to suck in hordes of viruses. I myself am a sanitary zealot when it comes to computers, I'd run a virus scan every 10 minutes. Not sure if it was my virus protection, or perhaps a deadly strain of an obscure virus infiltrated my system, but my laptop and desktop became flooded with them. After 3 months I managed to clear up the laptop. So overall I'd say Vista lacked an immune system.

Another problem I thought was accessing the features. The Windows Sidebar for example, I always thought that was really cool but until recently I had not known it had existed. It was hard to out how to execute simple tasks.

I hated that operating system, luckily 7 rose up over Vista.

 

If you are managing it as a server for end points, yes. But if you are configuring it to use as workstation/desktop PC then all you need to do is set the installation (.exe) in compatibility mode for Vista. I use ESET Business Edition with a trial reset currently. I like that version because its ridiculously light footed.

 

Interesting, I learn something new every day. I didn't know you could "fool" software on the type of OS... (I did know about compatebility mode - Maple 9.5 runs under "win 2000" on Vista...)

 

Compatibility mode is just one of many ways I have used to increase the compatibility of programs running on a Server operating system. I know it sounds crazy, but the end result is a ultimate workstation with full server capabilities.

A few programs that I use include:

Orca MSI editor allows me to edit MSI packages and drop the dependancy tables that cause the installation to refuse to install on a Server OS. The Intel Desktop Control Center is an example of such. Completely unsupported in a Server OS, but works perfectly fine because the codebase between Vista + 2008 and 7 + R2 are the same.

Microsoft's Application Verifier can trick an application that uses the GetVersionEX API call into thinking your running a client operating system instead of a server OS.

Some installers have executables which can be extracted using 7zip. Once you have done that inside of that is an XML file which you can edit and copy the OS version line, and create a new line with the producttype of 3 to indicate that installing to a server OS is acceptable.

These OS versioning tricks are very useful when using Windows Server 2008 as a workstation, but it can also be benefical for those who wish to install applications that were supported in XP/Vista but do not run in 7 despite the "compatibility" mode enabled. I find it is hit or miss with every application and it all depends on what method they use to check what OS you are running. To be honest I think vendors should not block installations at all, rather prompt the user with a message saying "You are running an unsupported OS, would you like to continue?" Makes life a lot easier on me HAHA

 

I actually installed MSE on a 2008 Server just couple weeks ago. Installed without complaints and worked okay. That was just a temporary test server tho, up for one day only

 

Someone on here told me that vista would destroy a ssd drive, is there any truth to this and why? I cnat see how this would be an issue as win 7 and vista are essentially the same program. But if it is true I would like to know.

Sent from my ARCHOS 80G9 using Tapatalk

 

definitely not. tell whoever claimed that, that he/she is an idiot.

what you should do however, is to switch off automatic defragmentation on vista as it is pointless and adds to wear. but it still wouldn't destroy a ssd

 

Well the lack of TRIM will slow writes down to a crawl over time if your SSD doesn't have garbage collection that can take care of things without TRIM. That's about it and a secure erase will restore performance should you need to restore it. That however will not destroy the SSD.

 

Well....

You can use an Intel G2 for a significant amount of time without trim. You can fill it and benchmark it nearly full... it hardly slows down...

So there is something else at work too. And the G2 doesn't have auto-trim on Vista.

 

While Vista doesn't have TRIM, you can use the Intel SSD Toolbox do manually trim your drive (it's recommended to do so every week, and can be automatically scheduled if you wish). I've been using this setup with Intel G2's and G3's for ages, with no issue with degradation whatsoever.

 

I know you can. The question is, do you need to? And the answer seems to be no.... - whyever.

 

I thought Vista wasn't so bad....Then I used my moms old 1525 running Vista Home Basic. It's not slow machine: CD T4300, 3GB DDR2, and 160GB 7200RPM. But, with Vista it is horribly slow. I installed Windows 7 on it a while ago and it was much, much faster.

 

I don't think Vista SP2 is that bad. At all.
Was your mum's laptop decently maintained regarding the OS and progs? How many startup progs, what load did the installed progs cause?
I mean, every fresh installed OS feels snappy without a plethora of progs installed and perhaps running at startup. (XPSP3/VistaSP2/Win7SP1 user)

 

I don't really know if it was optimized, I tried to never use it

When it was a fresh install it was ok, but after loading a few programs it slowed down a lot. And, it's not like she does a lot with her laptop. 20 Chrome tabs, 3 word docs, and 2 PDFs. That's it. I also remember my Dad's Compaq with Vista Home Premium. It had a dual core 1.6GHz AMD processor and 2GB's of memory, and it was similar slow.

I'm not bashing Vista, given the choice of it or XP, I'm going with Vista.

I should install Vista on my HP and see how slow it gets. Maybe with decent/above average hardware it's fine.

 

Well I'm going with another Intel 320 ssd, and a 750 HD in my 7720. Running vista sp2

Sent from my ARCHOS 80G9 using Tapatalk

 

Good or bad, Vista dies on April 10, 2012 when Microsoft ends mainstream support. Pretty soon I think most users will be speaking about Vista in the past tense. The big question is what's next?

Poll:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/mic...2012-what-do-current-vista-users-plan-do.html

 

semiexpert has lots to learn. nr. 1: learn to read.

 

No, it won't die. It doesn't work like that.

Most users already do.

What do you mean?

 

I don't think it's advisable for anyone to use an unsupported OS, especially when it comes to Windows. When the "Patch Tuesday" ends for Vista users this April, they are going to be wide open to any emergent exploits. Unsupported means unsupported.

I wouldn't encourage anyone to use an unsupported version of OS X or an unsupported Linux distro, and I think we can all agree that Unix-based operating systems are a lot less vulnerable than Windows.

There's going to be big gap between the end of Vista SP support on April 10, 2012 and the launch of Windows 8. It's not even clear if well see a retail, x86 version of Windows 8 ship in calender year 2012.

Basically, the end of Vista support is going to put the remaining Vista users into an unenviable dilemma. Buy a retail upgrade of Windows 7, which itself will only have support for about a year past the end of Windows XP support, or pursue other alternatives.

It's a colossal embarrassment to Microsoft that mainstream Vista support dies two years ahead of XP. Yes, Vista was a commercial failure, but all the same, do customers deserve to get the short end of the stick just because they purchased an unpopular product?

 

You have to remember though that longer XP support was demanded for by consumers and businesses alike, specifically because of the debacle that Vista deployment was initially. Granted, it's been a mature and stable OS for some time now, but there was a strong dislike of it for quite some time, even when it was fixed - its bad initial rep carried over. Had windows vista been as well received and as widely accepted as XP or 7, I doubt XP support would have been (as) extended.

Windows 7 however had no such levels of resentment (relative to Vista), and was generally well accepted, so extended/long term vista support is not a must have. 7 has been out for some time now, and there's been ample time for users to move on from Vista to 7 if they so choose, and microsoft has no obligation (as they did with XP in light of Vista's reception) to grant extended Vista support.

If you look at the support lengths for 95, 98/SE, 2000, XP, Vista and 7, it's clear that XP had unusually long support.

IMO customer's aren't getting the short end of the stick.. they're getting the normal sized stick after being granted a massive stick with regards to XP extended support. You can't expect MS to have decade+ long support life cycles for each iteration of windows. It's not profitable. Consider that new windows iterations come out much more frequently than that.. they would accumulate and have to support new versions faster than old ones died out/lost support. They would end up having increasingly larger allocations of business resources to product support, instead of development. That's not a good business model IMO.

 

Since when did updates become hard to get? If MS stops Windows Update for consumer Vista in April, just download them yourself!
Extended support ends 2017, and while it's not that fun or realistic to install updates every month for five years, you can at least do it until W8 comes.

Exactly, and unsupported doesn't mean dead. "Wide open" may be the case if you turn off the firewall and antivirus etc. Stop exaggerating.
You put a bit too much trust into updates. Yes, they're important, but it's naive to think that it's the only thing that makes a system safe.
As an example, we WILL see updates for Windows 7 in 2013 that fixes vulnerabilities that exists NOW.
Meaning, W7 is wide open to those exploits right now, yet we don't see the forums getting flooded with posts about unknown issues caused by not yet identified exploits.

Well if you're that paranoid, why don't you use Windows 8 beta, it will be released in February?

Or use W7 or Vista business without a key and use slmgr /rearm and combine with System Image.
It worked last time I checked.

 

I have since loaded on Win7, and wow, the computer is much faster.

 

Interface is not easy to use.