No I do not hate Windows Vista, I want it to fit the market
I’ll be the first to admit that I have written a number of articles critical of different aspects of Vista, especially running on mobile PCs. The reaction to some of these, including the one I posted yesterday, is understandably assuming that I hate Vista and have become a Mac fanboy. Time to set the record straight. I do not hate Vista, when it runs well it is a good user experience. The problem sets in when it doesn’t run well, and the fact that it often doesn’t further demonstrates that the Windows ecosystem is horribly broken. Why?
If you make a trip to a big retailer where lots of PCs are sold, like Best Buy, you will find that many of the name brand computers come with default configurations that will not run Vista as well as they should. They will have too little memory (2 GB should be the minimum) or will be lacking good drivers for the components in the PC. Based on my experience running Vista on many different PCs I know that the user is going to end up with a computer that doesn’t offer a very good user experience, if it doesn’t downright cause problems. This is so very wrong. Vista supporters will jump in and argue that it’s not Microsoft’s fault, the OEMs are trying to make a fast buck with cheaper systems. My take on that is that even if that is the correct reason it’s still not a good one as it is Vista that will be blamed in the long run. You can see Vista bashing all over the web and it always comes back to Vista as the source of all trouble. The truth is that if Vista requires far more hardware than can be sold in the numbers that companies need to turn to stay viable then that is too much. It gets back to that ecosystem.
I enjoy Vista running on the HP 2710p I am using. It runs well and gives me none of the problems that I have run into on other systems. Of course the HP has 2 GB of memory and really solid device drivers for all the components, and it comes at a big price compared to more budget-friendly systems. That makes this the exception rather than the rule and that is Microsoft’s problem in the long run. Vista does not do Microsoft any good if it is sold on units with configurations too poor to run well. It doesn’t matter whose "fault" it is, it is Vista that will get slammed. After all, if many PCs sold today are configured too poorly to run Vista well then Vista requires too much, doesn’t it? It’s that ecosystem thing again, Microsoft doesn’t sell PCs so they must supply an OS that will run on the machines being sold at any given time. That is just smart business and the fact it’s not that way is why so much Vista bashing is happening. It’s supply and demand at the base level, and Vista fails in that.
That’s why I have appealed to Microsoft in the past to give us a "Vista Mobile" or "Vista Light". Such a pared down OS would be able to run well on any PC being sold today, desktops, notebooks, and mobile PCs alike. It is supply and demand to provide what is needed to fit the hardware being sold, if you don’t make the hardware and the OS like Apple then you must make the OS fit the current hardware. That’s the big problem that Microsoft is having with Vista so why not fix it? Sure in two or three years the system hardware may evolve so that it’s cheap enough to be the stuff put in pre-configured cheap (popular) PCs but given the bad press that is being garnered already that may be too late. At some point the consumer or enterprise is going to say, hey we need to upgrade but not that much hardware. Click your heels together two times and say "Redmond, wake up!"
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I have vista on a oqo2. even with every speed tweak, it’s still a pig. MS built a system for 3-4 years into the future;however the mass market is driven by low price 2nd and 3rd machines on which vista performs poorly today. the old model of building an os for the distant future leaves current users of average configurations frustrated.
Hi James,
Who says you’re an Apple fanboy :)
I see the point you’re trying to make and I know that you’ve made this point before but it’s a difficult one. For instance, you had loads of problems with Vista on your P1610 and yet I have none. Now both our laptops will have almost identical configurations, especially for the bits that count, and the same drivers (with the possible exception of wifi). Perhaps we have different expectations that have lead to me being satisfied while you’re disappointed. Perhaps the software you had loaded caused the performance issues you experienced. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that with all the infinite permutations that a Windows PC can go through it’s impossible for Microsoft to take full control and be fully responsible without controlling the hardware like Apple do.
Now, if that were the case would you be happy to lose control of your hardware and the ability to upgrade without buying a whole new PC?
Microsoft did release guidelines for OEMs to ensure that their PCs were capable of running Vista properly. I’m not sure what more control we could expect them to have over the process but surely that would get them in even more trouble. Also, don’t forget that a lot of people would have rushed out to buy Vista to upgrade older PCs without full driver support and a lot of these people are now moaning about how crap they think Vista is. I can’t imagine how Microsoft could stop them from doing this.
I’m not sure what the solution is but I still think it’s a little unfair to blame Microsoft for things that are so beyond their control. NVidia was bashed pretty hard for their poor drivers when Vista was first released – perhaps more hardware manufacturers should be criticised.
Personally I blame the OEMs for bothering to put Vista on their budget computers. Ship them with XP, which they’re obviously designed for. Make Vista and the hardware needed to run it optional.
As for an OS designed to run on new, medium to high-end desktops being sluggish on mobile PCs: duh? I understand that the tech geek in all of us wants to be bleeding edge at all times, but seriously, what sane bone in your body thinks that wanting the most features possible from a PC on the smallest possible PC is going to be without drawbacks? That’s like trying to buy the biggest SUV you can find, demanding the smallest 4-cylinder engine and then wondering why it can’t make it up a hill.
Will mobile computers some day be up to par with today’s desktops? Sure, but by then desktops will be much more powerful and programs and websites will be designed for them, and we as mobile users will continue to complain that we are not catered too and our hardware is underpowered.
In short: if you buy a ten gallon bucket and try to put 12 gallons of stuff in it, it’s not the stuff’s fault it doesn’t fit.
I think Jake makes a good point. User expectations matter. In my case, I had no great expectations. I bought one of those “low-end” economy laptops — with a 2.2 Ghz solo core CPU and 1 GB of RAM. I didn’t really have a problem with the way Vista ran on it. In my opinion, it wasn’t any worse than XP was, running on my old PC with a 1.7 GHz CPU and .75 GB of RAM, and certainly looked nicer (or “newer,” anyway).
However, I “downgraded” to Win XP because there weren’t any Vista-compatible drivers for all of my other hardware — printers, scanners, webcam, etc. All of these devices work just fine with Win XP. However, all of my other hardware is 3 or more years old. None of the manufacturers have released updated Vista-compatible drivers for any of these “old” devices — and probably never will. I downgraded to Win XP so that I could continue to use these devices — no way I’m going to go out and drop hundreds of dollars on new hardware just to get Vista drivers.
So, my issue with Vista wasn’t its performance on my low-end laptop (which I thought was acceptable), but rather the lack of Vista-compatible hardware drivers. Given the fact that Vista isn’t backward-compatible with my current hardware and the device manufacturers probably won’t release new Vista-compatible drivers for such “old” equipment (which I can’t blame them for, I guess), my best option was to go back to Win XP.
Everything works like a charm, now.
Oems have options of optimizing Vista..
.. it’s just not as easy to say and do.
What’s all this talk about “low-end” economy laptops? I paid almost $2000 for my Fujitsu P1610 with the 1GB memory card upgrade. For that kind of money and configuration, it UNACCEPTABLE that it cannot run Vista properly. There are too many reports of problems running Vista to just divert the blame to other software loads. VISTA is garbage. The only way to force it to work at all is to disable most of its highly touted featurea, and to do “tweaks” that should not be required by the normal user: just to get performance comparable to the old (and very reliable) XP system.
Micro$oft will fail with Vista. It’s the Edsel of operating systems, destined to be worse than ME. Even they know it because they are have extended the availabiity of XP.
I predict there will be two versions of Windows moving forward. Vista for large desktop systems with extensive IT support. And XP for the rest (majority) of users.
Brian, while I can agree with your frustration, I’m not sure I agree with your reasoning. Yes, the P1610 is relatively expensive, but that’s becuase you’re paying for the mobility of a small Tablet PC; not for super specs to run Vista. A subtle point that doesn’t change your experience, but it should level-set your expectations. I don’t think you can base the reasoning on price when you’re paying a premium for other attributes. Put another way: spend that same $2k on a desktop and I’ll bet Vista runs very well for you. Also bear in mind that Vista’s minimum recommended specs are for 1 GB of RAM and a 1 GHz CPU. The P1610 just meets the meager RAM requirement (which I think should be 2GB) and barely exceeds the minimum recommended CPU speed. That’s the issue here, not the fact that the unit cost over $2,000 and therefore should run Vista well.
@Brian Hausknecht. So price decides performance? So the fact that you paid $2K on a core solo processor, running at 1.2 ghz, makes it faster? I should gold plate my cell phone, maybe I could run Vista? Enough of that rant.
@Brian I’m afraid I agree with Kevin ans Cody 100%. Additionally, applying a few tweaks to my P1610 was no big deal and now it perform perfectly acceptably with Vista. Sure it’s no supercomputer but what do you expect.
Also, all this talk about Vista being the new Windows ME is just plain nonsense. There have been some teething problems with Vista but rightly or wrongly that’s the case with all new versions of Windows. However, I’ve been using Vista since November last year and I’ve been amazed by the speed, regularity and effectiveness of the improvements that Microsoft have been releasing via Windows Update. A year ago there was always the risk that something like explorer.exe might crash out of the blue – now Vista is rock solid on all my PCs and my main PC is never switched off.
Guys, the comments were on “low-cost” and “budget” computers. The P1610 is neither. That is the point. I know you can sink a lot more money into the latest desktop with blinding performance in processor speed, memory, etc. People do that to play the latest game.
But Vista is not a game. It’s supposed to be the new standard operating system for Windows machines. As such, it needs to work in existing machinee that meet the minimum specifications. Applying “a few tweaks” just to get it to work satisfactorily is just not satisfactory. It should work with current systems that meet the specifications. My P1610 says “Windows Vista Capable”. But it is not with Vista Business edition. Not out of the box. Not without tweaks. Not without disk thrashing and battery life impacts. Not without the incompatibilities that many others have reported.
I am not a researcher or the R&D guy. I (and the vast majority of Microsoft and computer manufacturer customers) expect Vista to work under normal configurations with current systems; stuff on the store shelves. Certainly the equipment that commands a premium price. Until it does, we will continue to use XP.