Will Vista ever get stable

My D630 came with Vista Ultimate and I had a lot of BSODs. Installed all official DELL drivers from their site and the problems continued. Tried to format and install Vista again and the problems continues. Ran every possible hardware diagnostic software with 0 erros. My last try was to format and install XP Sp2 and now my note is running smooth and with 0 erros. Not planning to install Vista again soon.

 

I find this to be indicative of what I consider to be the underlying design flaw in Windows. Specifically, the blurring of the boundary between the OS, the application-enabling quasi-system functions, and the applications.

All an OS really needs to do is manage the System Resources: Memory; CPU; DASD; Program Management, Device Management.

The "quasi-system functions" include such aspects as Caching, Network, Database Management, Remote Management, Add-on Security Tools, Defragmentation, Synchronization Tools, ...

Applications are such things as Browsers, Office, Games, Image Processing Tools, ...

Until such time as the Windows architecture is modularized and these different functions are fully separated and isolated by documented and stringent interfaces, the Windows OS will continue to experience these sort of issues with every upgrade.

 

In retrospect, was XP much liked in SP2? Not really. Maybe when Vista SP2 comes out, it will have less problems. As for me, my Vista hasn't had as many problems as I had with XP.

 

My is running stable. I've never gotten a BSOD and system crash with Vista. I've had more trouble with XP than Vista so far. In fact, I just installed XP on an extra partition, and almost immediately got a virus (with anti-virus running too).

 

my too, ar pretty stable. except when u ar trying to run with new stuff, windows need to learn it first. like last night, i got a new tv tuner first try blue screen but after reboot windows learned the problem and fix it itself. how cool is that!!

 

Vista IS stable under most circumstances where the following are true:
-You are using new (or nearly new) hardware
-You are not performing an upgrade
-You are not trying to run old software which has no support in Vista
-You are willing to give up 3-10% performance for overhead.


Vista is superior in:
-has better user management and security
-has superior protection against intrusion, trojans, and traditional XP-zero-day attacks.
-has DX10 (yeah I know not all that important right now)

XP is superior in:
-using old software that is not compatible with Vista
-older hardware
-getting that last 1-6fps out of that DX9 game.


Both are viable and both work quite well with a capable user behind them.
(warning XP requires prep work or you might as well invite the trojan in)

 

Well said, Kernel. This is a very easy-to-understand synopsis.

I have one question for you as it relates to the very last part of your comment, though. When you say that XP requires prep work, what exactly are you talking about? I'm sure that I have everything in place as far as security is concerned, but I want to make sure that I didn't miss anything.

 

I think what he meant is that you must have security softwares. I'm not even using one under Vista X64

 

XP SP2 is very stable, at least in my experience. I can't remember the last time I had a crash on either my notebook or office desktop. Why would I want to give up 3-10% performance?

User management? How many people are running multi-user machines?

Vista out of the box seems very intrusive on security: "Do you really want to run this? Are you sure?"

Is there any hard evidence on XP v. Vista on intrusions, security, etc.? NBR posters are not the typical user base.

 

Gotcha. Well, I haven't missed anything then. I took every precaution as far as security with both of my systems. JCMS, you never get nervous without security software? I heard that the firewall and defender included with Windows Vista is not nearly as good as say Kaspersky or NOD32 or any of the other AV's and firewall programs.

 

I'll get Vista with the next computer. I'm in no rush to upgrade, since everything works in XP. Also, rumours of slowness, hard drive thrashing, permissions hassles, and software incompatibility make Vista seem like more trouble than it's worth.

 

Not yet because I'm on te 64bits version. If I were on 32bits I wouldn't leave it alone like that.

 

What is it about x64 that makes you so confident? Is the built-in security stuff better on that platform, or is x64 impervious to viruses and trojans, etc.? Do the people who create viruses not focus on x64 yet since it isn't considered mainstream, like x32?

 

I think it's because the Windows 64-bit OS doesn't actually run anything correctly and natively yet.

 

I'm not pleased when i see people talking like this. It kind of hurts to know that people are sticking with old software just because of rumors.

 

x64 Windows isn't a big target yet... it's probably about as common as Linux.

There are also other security advantages in Vista x64. Code that runs in the kernel must be signed (by Microsoft I think). The legacy 16-bit API is dropped, so that's less old code available in which to find an exploit. And I read something about a "better" data execution prevention in x64.

But... I'd guess that x64's novelty and obscurity may be its biggest advantage at the moment.

 

XP can indeed be quite stable provided you install security software and proper lockdowns for process execution AND do not run in Admin mode all the time. Logging in as a non-admin user, installing decent anti-virus and firewall software, (something which checks process execution) and using a browser that either checks script execution or turns it off entirely helps immensely.
Granted, doing that will likely reduce any performance advantage you had.

Note that giving up 1-6fps in a game seems like a fair trade to me to have solid security all the time in either XP or Vista.

EVERY user i a windows environment should have no less than two accounts.
Please tell me you didn't type this as an admin account...
**shakes head**

Do the entire Internet community a favor RIGHT NOW.
Do not wait.
Go into user management and create a user with admin permissions.
(for the love of all that's holy do NOT name it "admin")
Log into the admin account.
Nerf the bejeebus out of your standard user's permissions.
(not admin, not power user, just user)
Log out of the admin account.
Log into your now low-permissions account and enjoy better security.

Write the admin password down and store it with your locked down personal information (without any indication of it being a password) just in case you forget.

NEVER log into the admin account unless you need to install something or change a setting. You should NEVER browse the internet as an admin EVER.

Note that Vista allows you to log into your low permissions account AND log into your admin account at the same time... even if you have a domain account. It also allows you much more flexibility on who and what and when you can be logged in.

Do you really want to run trojan00292923?
After you figure out WHY it is asking you, you will never ever doubt this again.
It is quite possibly THE most powerful security tool ever included in windows as it forces anything executed to not only have admin permission, but to ASK the user before executing.
Obviously if you just started to install Office, then saying yes again seems like a bother, but when EVERY single Vista installation resists the latest virus infection and every XP box anywhere near it is infected, you will be impressed as well.

Hard evidence like watchingevery single vista machine in the network completely ignore a virus infection while every XP machine on the network exposed takes a thrashing?
Now do it twice.

During those infections, people with Vista machines could log in, do their work and were completely immune... Note all machines have our corporate antivirus and firewalling system along with corporate and the virus involved was not identifiable by any antivirus available.

For that, I am more than willing to give up 1-6 fps in some games.

 

LOL. I think you're a little to paranoid about admin rights. If you know what you're doing, there's zero risk to turning off UAC and running an admin account.

 

That's just completely false. An exploit (such as a buffer overflow) to a program such as your web browser or a picture viewer, pdf reader, etc. will gain full control over your system if you're running as admin with UAC off. It will only gain restricted access if you're running in a lower-privileged mode. Whether the extra convenience is worth the extra risk to you or not, it is certainly not "zero risk" no matter how much you know what you're doing.

 

I've been using vista for nearly two months now and I'm satisfied. I did a few gaming though.

 

i just updated vista today,
and my mouse pointer doesn't work,
then i got it to work, but my optical usb mouse doesn't work

 

I don't have any stability problems with Vista that aren't self inflicted. I've been running it since it was released to businesses in November 06. Since then I've only had a couple of driver crashes and one BSOD, all of which were due to me installing an incorrect driver for my graphics card. I run the IT at my work and have been purposely trying to break Vista so I know what does it and hopefully how to fix it I will not go back to XP on my machine as there really isn't any point or need to. I do run XP on most of the computers at work, but that is a financial issue not a stability issue.

 

Mine has rock solid stability, hasnt crashed once in 9 months, love the stability vista offers.

 

I've been running XP since the later beta days and I've always used an admin account. I can't remember a serious stability issue or security problem.

XP has a RunAs function.

What are you using for antivirus?

On our corp network, the problem is spam. Our AV and firewall seem to hold up better than yours. Users normally run as non-admin.

 

Wasn't the widget idea implemented first in konfabulator that then was bought by yahoo or something?
About vista, as far as stability goes I've never had problem with Os itself save for some bsod when undervolting my cpu too much, but the general useability of the system got me pissed after a while, it felt like getting drunk spending the the night with a sexy girl, marrying her and finally noticing that behind the nice face, she's a total *****... That's the kind of feeling I got, and that's why I'm back to xp.

 

Yes it was thank you, but I remember reading that Stardock also said Apple took an idea from them and never gave them credit.

 

Thank you, Swarmer.

 

People are entitled to make their own choices, regardless of what others may think of those choices.

 

You're absolutely right about that; however, most people nowadays don't know how to do that and will blindly listen to anyone or anything, so there are people out there who are staying away from Vista because of something they heard and not because they, themselves, have had a bad experience or any experience at all. We live in a world where it seems like most people are very easily influenced, manipulated, misinformed, or mislead. That's a shame.

 

You're absolutely right, but as what i meant has already been said, here is what i think:

 

Perhaps a (re)reading of this old short story might put a fresh perspective on it for you?

 

I don't quite understand how that relates to this. Care to enlighten me?

 

An earlier post about people not seemingly being capable of arriving at their own conclusions simply reminded me of it. It is a classic, right up there with this one, from roughly the same era.

All completely off-topic, of course.

 

I'm skipping vista, I'll wait for Windows 7.

 

I only skipped Windows ME (had it, just never installed it).

Did all of these, though: Windows 2.0; Windows 3.0; Windows NT 3.1; Windows for Workgroups 3.11; Windows NT Workstation 3.5; Windows NT Workstation 3.5.1; Windows 95; Windows NT Workstation 4.0; Windows NT Server (V3 & V4); Windows 98; Windows 98 Second Edition; Windows 2000 Professional; Windows XP Professional (base, SP1, and SP2); Windows Vista Home Premium (base and SP1).

Did a few OS/2's in there as well.

 

How come no one ever talks about Microsoft Bob.



THERE was a stable OS.

 

No, you are mistaking stable for comatose.

 

Never had a problem with Vista I couldn't fix within a few minutes. Some oddball changes on MS' part but really nothing too extreme. Coming from an older laptop on XP I can't really compare OS performance, but Vista load times and and general speed are acceptable imo... Should install SP1 soon too I guess

 

No stability issues here.

 

Vista is more stable than XP.
Read this : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/facts.mspx

 

This is absolutely correct. I have a laptop similar to yours, with inferior specs, and Vista runs beautifully. There was a lot of disk thrashing going on after a clean install, but following the NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide quickly fixed all that.

 

NBR FTW

Btw Most of the major Vista problems have been fixed.
its stable & infact my dad uses VISTA business for his Office work.

he says it is fine.



I think the OP has travelled from Past year 2007 using a Time machine so he doesnt know that SP1 has been released.

 

My machine has been stable on Vista, pre-SP1, since June of 2007, and has been stable on Vista SP1 since March of 2008.

 

Same here.

 

Same here, except it was September 2007 for me.

 

I am sorry, but anyone who thinks they "know what they are doing" enough to turn off security features that have a decent chance to stop even zero-day attacks most certainly does not have the slightest clue of what they are up against. If you turn it off, you better KNOW how much you are risking. If you don't think that risk is significant, you need to do some reading and soon.

All it takes is ONE mispelling of a website while runing as admin and you are running a trojan. yes, through your firewall, yes through your antivirus... note that if you run on a network YOU don't even need to be the one who mispells that website. One of co-workers "big-fingers" the spelling of one site and the trojan spreads itself through one of the unpatched holes in windows. It then infects everyone who cannot stop the process from auto-executing. If you are logged on as an admin, a vast amount of precautions are bypassed.

If you are using vista in normal user mode AND running UAC there are two very big hurdles to jump over that really don't take much to get used to or waste much time at all if you practice using them. Note that UAC is actually the best precaution of all as even if your antivirus is clueless, the system is going to ASK the user if they are sure, or for an admin password to run.
All it takes from the user is to know "anything I didn't explicitly say to run should NOT run".

The entire Internet community would be better off if all these people who "knew what they were doing" would "play" stupid for one week and get used to UAC and user management.

Go ask your local *nix admin how important user rights management is...
Windows now has actually taken a page from *nix and actually implemented user rights which work.
For sanity's sake, use them.

Either you have a short memory and a small network, or you are extremely lucky.
In both cases you are taking risks you neither need nor should take.
XP can be stable, but requires work. It is entirely possible someone else is doing the work for you.

Go do some reading, this is not the same thing as Vista's user management. Not by a long shot.

We have a major corporate antivirus/personal firewall distributed by forced policy to every computer that logs into the domain. I am unable to tell you the vendor due to legal restrictions.
Suffice to say that while I do believe there is one or two vendors with products with slightly better features in some cases, there is no clearly-better product for our network.

FYI, NO antivirus detected and cleaned the viruses in question on our test network (and we tried 4 major ones) until AFTER we submitted the new virus to our vendor... then they distributed new definitions afterwards.

Unless your network has 100+ workstations and has submitted more than a few new viruses "in the wild" you are comparing apples to oranges. This would be why you appear to be "holding up better".
Of course the guys back in the basic training camps take less losses than the guys at the front lines...

Part of the reason I am so paranoid is because I know what I face.
Please do the reading and square up... I am not the enemy, I am just the friendly messenger with news you don't want to hear and advice you don't want to take.

 

Quite stable for moi.

 

We have about 5,500.

 

We have about 5,500. No virus infected desktops in over five years

 

We have about 5,500. No virus infected desktops in at least five years