In Defense of Vista

Å

Åndhrimnir

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
Messages
323
Windows 7 has been out for a couple months now, and many of us were playing around with the beta and RC long before that. It has recieved widespread praise as being a step in the right direction; in contrast Vista recieved quite harsh, negative reviews upon initial release.

But is Vista really that bad? I think I speak for most when I say that UAC is annoying, and while you can turn it off, it shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. Vista was called lots of nasty names, especially in regards to it's memory demands, which were substantial. Plenty of people were even more flustered when SP1 came out, claiming that Vista should have been like that to begin with.

I, for one, never had a problem with Vista. Not that Vista doesn't have problems - it certainly has it's fair share. But I never felt like it was inferior to other OSes. It's our job to pick at new software, and point out all it's flaws, and complain about missing features, but I think we were too hard on Vista. It had plenty of important new features, not the least of which being DX10, which was a massive step forward above DX9.

Windows 7 is a nice, shiny new OS, and lots of people like it. It's their personal choice, of course. But I don't really see it as too much of a step away from Vista. It's got a couple new features, but most of them are just GUI 'improvements'. Are these truly so important that they make 7 massively more popular than Vista? I, personally, have learned to navigate computers fast enough that the new features in 7 only save me a fraction of a second for most tasks.

I have grown fond of Vista. It's not perfect, of course, but I like it. It suits my needs better than anything I've encountered. For those of you who prefer other OSes, what don't you like about it? I feel like most of the complaints about Vista were superficial. Do you feel differently?

I'm trying to develop a complete picture of how people feel/felt about Vista, and if they consider Windows 7 significantly different. Just tossing in my 2 cents - let's hear yours.
 
Ah this is always a fun topic. Bottom line, Vista is a fine OS that simply suffered from big changes in the security and driver models and that caused a lot of headaches. People say that Vista was rushed a bit and while that may be true getting Vista out in the field and getting the ecosystem in tune with these changes was never going to be a simple thing.

Windows 7 is a lot better overall IMHO and I have retired Vista on my personal systems.
 
I dont think that Vista needs to be defended.

Its an excellent OS in its own right. I had no issues and it was beat up for no reason at all.

But Vista is in the past now. No point in continuing to hit the dead hose.

Lets move on with Win 7 and not look back. :D
 
Vista wasn't that bad, especially after SP1. The big problem for it was that it was a huge change from XP. Most people either don't like change, or just can't handle it. Since Windows 7 is a lot like Vista, it's been easier on people. I also think that the market wasn't ready for Vista's hardware requirements. There were still a bunch of people using computers that they bought years before because they were enough for XP, which had been out for ages and didn't need much. The majority of people have either upgraded or bought new computers from the time Vista was released till now, so there isn't that problem anymore. I'm sure there's a lot more that someone else can add.
 
heatlesssun said:
People say that Vista was rushed a bit
Click to expand...

Wasn't Vista delayed like 2 years?

I liked Vista very much, I was reluctant at first, but I had so many issues with XPx64 that I decided to try Vista x64 and was amazed at how well it ran.

that being said, the interface improvements in win7 just make it that much nicer than Vista and XP.
 
I never had any problems with Vista...at all. I bought a laptop with Vista Home Premium preinstalled before standalone copies were being sold. It was a Gateway machine with a Pentium Dual Core and 1gb of RAM. It had integrated ATI graphics that were Aero-capable and it ran just fine. Fast forward to now, I've had multiple installs of Vista Home Premium across a few different machines, and even ran Vista Business as my primary OS for about a year until Windows 7 was released. When switching from x86 to x64, I was scared I'd have driver issues, program compatibility problems, etc - but I had none.

I seriously never understood what the hell people were complaining about. I know that a lot of the bad rap came from superfetch; the fact that people were moronic on a widespread level thinking Vista was eating RAM alive, but I still see the occasional thread entitled "ZOMG I finally got Vista and it's taking up all of my RAMz what do I d0!?!?!?!!!"

...and of course, I just roll my eyes.

Anyways, I've been using Windows 7 since before launch and it gave me that nice boost that I was hoping for. Everything just feels "snappier" when compared to XP or Vista.
 
You don't have to defend Vista around here. Most of us here like Vista and think it was an innovative OS that moved home computing forward. There are some who still bash it but usually they are driven away by the ravaging they receive from those who defend it.
 
Interesting that the consensus here seems to be that Vista was okay, whereas much of the computing world ripped it to shreds in the reviews.

Side note: ever heard of the Mojave experiment? MS interviewed people about what they'd heard was bad about Vista and why they weren't adopting it, and then got to test-drive "Windows Mojave", which they gave fairly good reviews before they realized it was just Vista. MS was probably doing some cherry-picking data to support Vista, but I still think that's pretty interesting. I wonder how much of the Vista hate was generated by reviewers, not users...
 
Åndhrimnir;1035065035 said:
I wonder how much of the Vista hate was generated by reviewers, not users...
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. I got Vista and someone I knew was like "aww man, Vista sucks, why did you get that?" There was something interestingly off about his statement that bugged me, but I couldn't quite pinpoint it...

...I dunno, it may have been the fact that, uh, he never even TRIED the damned OS. :p
 
Åndhrimnir;1035065035 said:
Interesting that the consensus here seems to be that Vista was okay, whereas much of the computing world ripped it to shreds in the reviews.
Click to expand...
There were a couple factors which played in to that. The first is, of course, the media. It got wind that something stank and jumped all over it, blowing it way out of proportion. Second was that many administrators don't like change. We hate it, but not for ourselves. For our users. We know that the slightest GUI change will generate phone calls. Coupled with the fact that XP had been out for YEARS..and well, you have users that were almost savant-ish about icon placement and gui behavior. And as administrator, the entire purpose of my job is to KEEP users from calling me.

That said, vista did have some issues. File transfers were an issue, as was UAC ( which MS acknowledged in 7 ). All in all, I could see how some might say it was a step up from XP. Depending on how you used your system, that would be true. For me and my purposes, I'd still be fine rockin' 2k.
 
Åndhrimnir;1035064450 said:
Windows 7 has been out for a couple months now, and many of us were playing around with the beta and RC long before that. It has recieved widespread praise as being a step in the right direction; in contrast Vista recieved quite harsh, negative reviews upon initial release.

But is Vista really that bad? I think I speak for most when I say that UAC is annoying, and while you can turn it off, it shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. Vista was called lots of nasty names, especially in regards to it's memory demands, which were substantial. Plenty of people were even more flustered when SP1 came out, claiming that Vista should have been like that to begin with.

I, for one, never had a problem with Vista. Not that Vista doesn't have problems - it certainly has it's fair share. But I never felt like it was inferior to other OSes. It's our job to pick at new software, and point out all it's flaws, and complain about missing features, but I think we were too hard on Vista. It had plenty of important new features, not the least of which being DX10, which was a massive step forward above DX9.

Windows 7 is a nice, shiny new OS, and lots of people like it. It's their personal choice, of course. But I don't really see it as too much of a step away from Vista. It's got a couple new features, but most of them are just GUI 'improvements'. Are these truly so important that they make 7 massively more popular than Vista? I, personally, have learned to navigate computers fast enough that the new features in 7 only save me a fraction of a second for most tasks.

I have grown fond of Vista. It's not perfect, of course, but I like it. It suits my needs better than anything I've encountered. For those of you who prefer other OSes, what don't you like about it? I feel like most of the complaints about Vista were superficial. Do you feel differently?

I'm trying to develop a complete picture of how people feel/felt about Vista, and if they consider Windows 7 significantly different. Just tossing in my 2 cents - let's hear yours.
Click to expand...

Never had an issue with Vista.
The best way to look at Windows 7, is that its Vista 2.

"significantly different"...no, its just what Vista should have been
all along. Improved yes, new yes.

Its better, only because its foundation is Vista in the first place.
 
Åndhrimnir;1035064450 said:
But is Vista really that bad? I think I speak for most when I say that UAC is annoying, and while you can turn it off, it shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
Click to expand...
They didn't do anything different with UAC.
Microsoft crippled it by default now, which allows exploits... All in the name of "ease of use" because people complained they got too many popups.

It's like someone complaining they get too many warnings about viruses, so the AV company just starts ignoring some viruses... It's just stupid.

It's the #1 stupid thing Microsoft has done in regards to Windows.

On any system I touch or have a say in, UAC gets bumped up to the "On" level at install.

Deimos said:
Wasn't Vista delayed like 2 years?
Click to expand...
Vista went through a crap ton of changes. Most people have no idea work on Vista started before XP was even released- if that goes to tell you anything.

Luckily, Microsoft isn't going to do that again.

That said, I remember reading an article recently somewhere about a reviewer already griping that the 2-3 year release cycle is TOO SOON....

Åndhrimnir;1035065035 said:
I wonder how much of the Vista hate was generated by reviewers, not users...
Click to expand...
90%.

Honestly, 90% of the people that said Vista sucks, when I called them on such an idiot statement, they haven't ever even used it.

XOR != OR said:
We know that the slightest GUI change will generate phone calls. Coupled with the fact that XP had been out for YEARS..and well, you have users that were almost savant-ish about icon placement and gui behavior.
Click to expand...
That's for sure. I think even worse than a slight GUI change was XP being out forever. Users got stuck in their ways.
 
Vista was awesome, for me. Until that time, I didn't know a computer could be that stable (ran 24/7 for 2 years without a single crash or unexpected reboot - until my PSU died, which caused a bunch of reboots until I replaced the PSU, then everything was super stable again.), I'm very fond of Aero, I think it blows everythihg else out there away, I just wish MS would use it more. The security was so good that I never caught a single piece of malware on my system, despite Windows being the most targeted OS, while surfing shady websites daily (I just know not to download .exes from those places.) It was fast enough, many benchmarks showed that Vista was faster than XP, and I believe it from using both. Hell I could go on and on, people just love to hate things, and Vista was a fat target. I on the other hand, had much appreciation for all the things Vista brought to the table. I think Vista was more a techie's OS, while 7 was aimed at the average user, and that explains the difference in general reactions. And as good as Vista was, I find Win 7 to be even better. Not so much 'that's what Vista should have been' but just an evolution of an already excellent OS.
 
Vista was hated by the general population largely based on poor reviews and just general ignorance:

1) Vista incompatibility - most people blamed the fact that thier (printer, scanner, etc) didn't work in Vista on MS when they should have been directing their ire at the hardware vendors for not updating their drivers for even relatively new hardware. Even the companies that did update their drivers, waited far too long to do it (nvidia was real bad here with stable drivers). Vista had a very long beta period and over three months from RTM until retail launch. That should have been plenty of time for companies to get their drivers together, but many just started at retail launch. Since most Vista drivers worked in 7, it didn't get this bad stigma from the beginning.

2) People that just hate MS in general - A lot of the negative press and reaction from techs came from people that would hate anything MS puts out. The negative preconception for Vista just gave them a larger platform than they usuall get.

3) Slower benchmarks - Vista was slower in most benchmarks, but for the most part it wasn't a noticeable diffference. There is really no difference between 100 FPS and 110 FPS in a game or loading a web page in 0.1 seconds vs 0.08 seconds. There wer esome legitimate issues like the file transfer problem though.

4) General change - as has already been covered

5) Hardware vendors selling under equiped laptops - This was a big issue near launch. Most of the mass market machines with Vista came with 512MB of RAM and it ran like crap on such systems (just like XP ran like crap on systems with 64 MB of RAM at launch).

I dealt with a lot of people at work (both technical and non-technical) that hated Vista solely based on its reputation but not actually having used it. I personally didn't understand why anyone would want to stay with XP unless they had a specific compatibility issue for a critical app. The security model for Vista and general OS feel was just much better. I still hate working on XP to this day with the Fisher Price UI.
 
darkpaw said:
1) Vista incompatibility - most people blamed the fact that thier (printer, scanner, etc) didn't work in Vista on MS when they should have been directing their ire at the hardware vendors for not updating their drivers for even relatively new hardware. Even the companies that did update their drivers, waited far too long to do it (nvidia was real bad here with stable drivers). Vista had a very long beta period and over three months from RTM until retail launch. That should have been plenty of time for companies to get their drivers together, but many just started at retail launch. Since most Vista drivers worked in 7, it didn't get this bad stigma from the beginning.
Click to expand...
This was the #1 thing.
Microsoft had to kick into overdrive gear and write some drivers for more popular hardware.

Also, this is why Windows 7 isn't kernel 7, it's 6.1.

Too many idiot driver manufacturers write their drivers for "kernel=6" instead of "kernel=6+". Because of that, a new kernel version 7.0 would break a ton of drivers. So they just catered to the idiots (again) and just appended .1


You also mentioned benchmarks, a unique thing on that... Vista and Windows 7 get faster over time. They also require time to index and cache, and do their thing.
Therefore, XP clean install vs a Windows 7 clean install, Windows 7 is at a huge disadvantage.
The industry will have to find different benchmarking methods, that's for sure.
 
is there really a need to defend Vista in a techie circle like this one? If theres one thing Microsoft did well with Vista and its successor, its craft an excellent desktop operating system.

now if only they'd do something as nice for windows mobile....
 
Younger members & those with short memories will forget that there was the same sort of backlash against XP when it first came out.

People fear change. New OSes have a few rough edges. Hardware vendors like to screw people with underpowered system. These are all constants.

edit : s/realize/forget/
 
Last edited:
ameoba said:
Younger members & those with short memories will realize that there was the same sort of backlash against XP when it first came out.

People fear change. New OSes have a few rough edges. Hardware vendors like to screw people with underpowered system. These are all constants.
Click to expand...

What was scary is when a member here posted a link to another forum elsewhere, talking about how much better 98 was than XP. It was kindof uncanncy- the same exact arguments were used then.

People hate change, that's all there is to it.
 
jordan12 said:
Its an excellent OS in its own right. I had no issues and it was beat up for no reason at all.
Click to expand...

I, and many others, think Vista was basically crap.

When I say that, maybe it has to be interpreted for all these Defenders Of Vista that seem to pop up out of the woodwork (who knows why, sheesh) whenever anybody complains about Vista :rolleyes:

Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. Microsoft COULD have given us Direct X 10 with XP - saying "Vista gave us DX 10" is just an empty BS argument playing in to the hands of Microsoft's marketing department. Vista didn't really do much that XP didn't, and, it did what it did with greater overhead, required more memory, came out of the gate with some glitches (whereas XP had had years to have the bugs worked out, so why switch?) - and - if you paid retail prices it cost a heck of a lot of money, more than some new PCs! The most annoying get your blood boiling aspect of Vista was the new tiered marketing model. What self respecting geek would possibly want a version of the OS that was intentionally stripped of features? I (and many others) never bought Vista [stand alone/retail/upgrade] because of this and other reasons.

I had Vista, it came "free" on a laptop I bought. It was OK, I didn't hate using it. There was simply NOTHING compelling it offered that I would miss out on with XP.

Windows 7 on the other hand, DOES have significant changes beyond what Vista offered.

Read the Microsoft tech article about how much effort was focused on eliminating those irritating little "pauses" where the OS momentarily freezes (becomes unresponsive) - this is the first time I read about Microsoft taking that issue so seriously.

Windows 7 also has more significant changes to the GUI than Vista did.

Part 2:

I built a new machine a while back. Trying to put Windows XP on it was a NIGHTMARE - I never did get the SATA/RAID drivers properly configured/installed/working. I spent literally days finally geting the computer to work well, then, after a couple weeks it died (Windows XP died, but there was no permanent hardware failure).

Out of desperation/frustration - and - with the serendipitous find: $29 for a "Student" version of Windows 7 Professional! (YAY!) I thought, what the heck, maybe Windows 7 will support this newer hardware better. Low and behold - it installed and found ALL the drivers AUTOMATICALLY. I didn't have to do anything other than a simple easy OS install and it worked beautifully. Almost everything I wanted it to do - it seemed to somehow already be configured the way I wanted, one pleasant surprise after the other.

The combination of three things: exceedingly pleasant first experience, significant (much more so IMHO than Vista) enhancements to both the inner workings and the exterior of the OS, AND, the $29 made Windows 7 a compelling choice. Whereas, Vista was "no thanks, I'll see what comes next" for myself, and many others who were not forced to buy it with a new PC.

Part 3:

In response to the topic "people made the same arguments about XP & 98..." - well - 98 SE was a good OS, ran games fast, didn't have as much overhead (could work with less memory) as XP. But, I do not see that correlation much, and, I don't agree with that idea much. I had no problem switching to XP from 98. I've used XP on MANY systems for many years, the same will NEVER be true for Vista. (Again, aside from the puposfully created argument of DX 10) there were not so many reasons to "upgrade" from XP to Vista, as there were to upgrade from 98 to XP.

Part 4:
Tawnos said:
You mean the superbar? Quicklaunch is deprecated and can only be brought back via a workaround.
Click to expand...

Oh, thanks for reminding me about Quick Launch - here's a detailed link with pictures and step-by-step directions:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/888-quick-launch-enable-disable.html

I am one of those people that always turns on Quick Launch when I use other people's PCs. Some of them might be annoyed :p but, whenever I showed people what it is and how to use it, they seem to like it.
 
Last edited:
Aside from UAC and compatibility...

If I recall, I think people were complaining about Vista using up so much memory. On these forums, 2GB of memory is low end. For the average joe, 2GB was upper end. I think they were also worried about Vista hogging up the resources while gaming. On a low end system, it would be a legit concern.

What do I know? I haven't had trouble with vista on a 3GB laptop.
 
gibber said:
Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. Microsoft COULD have given us Direct X 10 with XP - saying "Vista gave us DX 10" is just an empty BS argument playing in to the hands of Microsoft's marketing department.
Click to expand...
Nissan COULD have given all the 1990 Altima owners GPS systems as well.

You, along with most Microsoft bashers, totally fail when it comes to realizing that Microsoft is still a business, and must make money.

You don't put your latest and greatest features in old products. It's stupid business sense.


gibber said:
Vista didn't really do much that XP didn't, and, it did what it did with greater overhead, required more memory, came out of the gate with some glitches (whereas XP had had years to have the bugs worked out, so why switch?) - and - if you paid retail prices it cost a heck of a lot of money, more than some new PCs!
Click to expand...
1. Overhauled memory management, overhauled system management, new security framework, new application support, new hardware interface, new power management, improved PnP, a new HAL... These are just new kernel features- forgetting everything else that sits on top of the kernel. It didn't do anything more? :rolleyes:
2. Superfetch is the reason it uses more memory. You're like the Apple zombies... Just say it "uses more memory" before realizing that unused RAM is wasted RAM.
3. Vista didn't cost any more money. Go look at the releases prices.
XP Pro was 299, Vista Biz was 299
XP Home was 199, Vista HP was 159
Yea- you're clearly right- it was more expensive :rolleyes:

gibber said:
What self respecting geek would possibly want a version of the OS that was intentionally stripped of features?
Click to expand...
Like what?
Just a minute ago you were bitching because they shipped it with bugs, now you're wishing they would've put MORE unfinished products in it?


TrollBGone- I ran out!
 
Maybe for YOU there was nothing in Vista worth upgrading to, but for me: Greatly improved Security (DEP, ASRL, IL Sandboxing, heap and stack cookies/checksumming, pointer encryption, ACLed services, and so on effectively protected the OS against 0-day exploits, whereas XP is wide open to them), mandatory 64-bit support so the average person could actually use 64-bits, gpu accelerated gui with good-looking glass interface, awesome searching abilities including start menu search (press [w] and start typing then press enter!), superfetch - all my programs opened instantly with 6GBs of ram unlike disk grinding XP, user mode drivers so the OS rarely crashed (I don't think my Vista ever crashed, except for when the PSU died.) Ah but that's nothing compared to the XP good ol days I suppose without all this 'crap'... :rolleyes:
 
How i see it..

if windows 7 was released 2 years ago instead of Vista, Windows 7 would of gotten the same hate Vista did...

it was a big change, more resources, new tech few people understoof, so they started to hate it.

Now that Win7 is out, people know what tech is in it and accept it.

People dont like change and were stuck on XP for so long it was hard to convince them their OS was old, buggy and needed to go!
 
devil22 said:
Maybe for YOU there was nothing in Vista worth upgrading to, but for me: Greatly improved Security (DEP, ASRL, IL Sandboxing, heap and stack cookies/checksumming, pointer encryption, ACLed services, and so on effectively protected the OS against 0-day exploits, whereas XP is wide open to them), mandatory 64-bit support so the average person could actually use 64-bits, gpu accelerated gui with good-looking glass interface, awesome searching abilities including start menu search (press [w] and start typing then press enter!), superfetch - all my programs opened instantly with 6GBs of ram unlike disk grinding XP, user mode drivers so the OS rarely crashed (I don't think my Vista ever crashed, except for when the PSU died.) Ah but that's nothing compared to the XP good ol days I suppose without all this 'crap'... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

:cool: CHEERS!
 
XP isn't really buggy- it's been patched so many times now it's ridiculous. It's just that it's old tech, gets slow with time, and has not the kernel and underlying foundation that Vista laid to take stability and security further.
 
gibber said:
I am one of those people that always turns on Quick Launch when I use other people's PCs. Some of them might be annoyed :p but, whenever I showed people what it is and how to use it, they seem to like it.
Click to expand...

That makes you an ass, and it gives no benefit to the user.
 
TechieSooner said:
Never-minding that Windows 7's taskbar is infinitely more powerful and capable than Quick Launch ever was.
Click to expand...

Indeed, which is why his refusal to spend the 5 minutes it takes to learn it and forcing that ignorance on others is asinine.
 
I remember the whole 98 & 2000 vs. XP shitstorm. I actually remember the day when I was talking to an idiot "friend" who was bashing XP for it's sluggishness (this was around one or two months prior to XP's release). He actually illustrated to me the amount of code written within each of the three by the space in between his hands:

98 - hands about 4 or 5 inches apart.
2000 - hands roughly about a foot and a half apart.
XP - hands stretched all the way out in opposite directions.

Jesus Christ. :rolleyes:
 
Acoustique said:
remember win98 to xp

yeh exactly

people are whinging retards untill they get a service pack
Click to expand...

Exactly.

I've ridden out pretty much every new release of Windows since 3.1 (skipped WinMe though), and more to the point, I still like Vista. I've got it on my htpc, my wife's laptop, my computer and my work laptop (soon transitioning to Win7), and just like every iteration before it I don't have any problems that I don't create. Yes, driver support at the beginning was a little wonky, but that went away quickly enough. Once the service pack and updates started flowing, it was even better for me.
 
I ahve no issues with vista,

as a matter of fact I thought the bitlocker portion of it was brilliant and worked queite well whent he CA hierachy was designed correctly.
 
Even the "wait for the SP" stuff is nonsense.

Whenever someone pulled that BS with Vista, I always ask (and have NEVER gotten a response): "What did SP1 magically fix?"........ Yep, not a soul can name a single good reason. It fixed some networking issues, but obviously, it was nothing major.
The only thing waiting for SP1 does is just wait until you hop to the OS. That's probably why Microsoft is releasing the SPs sooner.
 
never had a problem with vista, and honestly it runs better on my 2 year old laptop, however I do prefer windows 7........i just like being able to drag my windows to the top/sides for sizing, i find myself doing this alot on my laptop/xp machines......also I like the new task bar...a bit neater than previous versions of windows.....just my 2 cents
 
I like how most people on [H] like Vista, and use them, people around me complain too much about Vista (like I did, until I tried it on my friend's shiny new C2D laptop with 2GB of RAM and decided to purchase the OS),
they mostly get that from reviews and also because hardware standards was not as high as in [H].

At that time most people only use 512MB of RAM... 1GB tops, its only natural for Vista to suck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top