Why the sorry state? Let’s face it: it’s slower, a lot changed for no reason (why so many damn clicks to change the freakin’ resolution?) and too much resource intesive (400 mb was the best I could get on memory use, but 10 Gb? C’mon!). Microsoft would do a lot better if they released XP Sp2 with the Aero interface (with a fancy name, like Windows Glass or Fluff) back in 2004. Nobody would complain. And for those who thinks about Vista being a secure system, just try Server 2003. Vista was written above it. But Server 2003 is way faster and much less resource intensive. I’m not a Mac fan, but they’re doing it right. I’m no XP fan either, but Microsoft did it right back there. They just lost track of what is important for a computer user: performance. Not gimmicks. When the gimmicks novelty wear off, the user will see how bad the performance is.

Those who don’t complain about Windows Vista have a far better computer than the average user. Asking for a behemot system like Quad-core, SLI GTX8800, 4 Gb Ram and a 1 kilowatt font for playing FSX just like in XP with a much more modest machine is ridiculous at the best.

And even if it was working just like XP, the amount of things installed with Vista is ridiculous. What happened to the Windows 98 like setup? That was amazingly good and simple and natural to choose to install what was necessary only.

Anyway, I could go on and on in this rant. Sorry for those who like Vista. It’s your money anyway. But I’m angry with Microsoft. I didn’t liked XP (and I still don’t like it), waited this much for get a pos OS and now what? I’ll have to stick around with XP for a little longer than I thought. Maybe until 2010 if they don’t screw around at Redmond this time. Argh…

When multi-qualified people (A+,N+,MSCE etc) point out obvious flaws in Vista’s design philosophy, the Microsofties accuse them of not knowing what they are talking about.

When the average man in the street complains about Vista’s sluggish behaviour (witnessed on MS forums, MSN, IRC and others) and that XP did it faster on an eight year old machine, they get pilloried by the Microsofties.

The same old excuse of throwing more money (hardware and software) at Vista so that it works as advertised.

All new OS’s have some problems by their own complex nature. A perfect OS is akin to rocking horse s**t. But the Microsofties seem to think that quadcore cpu’s, eight gigabytes of ram and twin 512mb graphics cards in sli formation are common place. Worse still they insult others for not having this specification to run their beloved OS.

And I laugh myself silly when they say Vista is the best OS ever conceived, then go to an IRC channel with half a dozen problems they cannot fix.

If Vista works for you, great, glad you got your monies worth. But don’t dismiss educated and experienced users that feel Vista did not deliver just because it demolishes you MS centric world view…!

Every person I’ve ever talked to that likes it are Simple Surfers.

I bought it because I wanted Media Center in my A/V package… MS website told me my computer was rated 5.4 out of 5.9… a monster graphics machine.

I purposely waited until last Christmas for all the bugs to shake out and then spent FOUR MONTHS waiting for bios, chipset and hardware drivers to update from my machine from a $2500 e-mail server to a 90% functional graphics workstation.

Creative drivers spontaneously UNINSTALL and the ATI drivers still stop working for 30 seconds before the display driver resets. Half of the graphics software I use requires running in XP mode.

I have joined the Class Action Suit against MS and can only hope that when they FINALLY produce a working OS I can trade this tired DOGWARE for free. I doubt there will be any cash settlement from these idiots, and I’m sure I won’t get reimbursed for the hundreds of hours I lost waiting for this turd to stink better!

With the Office 2007 UI team being on board for Windows 7 things should get a lot more easier especially if they do integrate ribbons of some sort or add tabs to more things, not to mention expand upon the better things in built into vista.

If i had to choose between xp and vista it would be vista. i am more than happy with xp, especially now with sp3. however, even though vista is superior in many ways and we prefer it in general, its unpolished completeness and driver problems leave us all feeling that it just isn’t as good as it could be (driver problems not being entirely microsofts problem – a significant change like vista had to make sacrifices and if it is paving the way for a better, securer OS then i am all for it).

With windows 7 there wont be any driver problems (as they wont be changing the driver model yet again) and the vista flaws will either be remedied or we will just be used to them by then.

I fail to see how his opinion on UAC has anything to do with populism. This is probably because it doesn’t and you’re just tagging it with what you perceive to be a big word to inflate your appearance of authority. Furthermore, the exact sentence used in the article is, “Strip out or minimize some of Windows Vista’s clunkiest features”(emphasis added). Just one example he offered was UAC which he considers most critical. As you noted it requires more work and Hiner didn’t call straight out for it to be removed, one could also minimize the intrusiveness of that feature on the user experience. I would point out that it is generally not a good idea to misrepresent what someone is saying when trying to refute them.

It is also a bad idea to slander entire groups based on vague, oversimplified generalizations. I am one of those 20-something geeks you would like to paint as somehow being naive and inexperienced with changes in technology. One should point out that in the last 10 years of my life (~half) I have experienced more technological change than someone in their 40s or 50s would have ever dreamed of seeing in their entire lives. It is something that I, and my generation, have become quite accustomed to. In fact I tend to revel in being able to witness technological progress at such a fast pace. My generation is not like my mother who wants a system that “JustWorks(TM)”, as you put it. We are much more savvy with technology than you would like to believe, and I suspect you are quite out of touch.

Just to describe my personal experience, my first encounter with personal computing was on one of the old Apple computers in my preschool. We bought a Packard Bell IBM clone not that many years after and as an elementary school student knew but DOS and Windows 3.1 rather intimately. We skipped Windows 95 and went straight to Windows 98, which was great. Windows 2000 was probably my favorite version and, like Windows 95, skipped out on Windows ME. When Windows XP was released it had problems and I continued to use Windows 2000 on my home computer until after service pack 2 was rolled out, at which time I made the transition. Now, with Windows Vista, I find myself in a similar position. The only question is will this turn out like Windows 95 or Windows ME where I skip it altogether, or will Microsoft clean up Vista enough that I will switch at some point in the not so distant future?

The big question is if Microsoft will deliver “mud-lite” in Windows 7 or if it will fulfill many of the original goals of Vista. (True scalable graphics and GUI, database file system, secure, fast performance, easy-to-use…)