Hate Vista? You May Like the Fix [new MS operating system Windows 7]

New York Times ^ | January 21, 2009 | DAVID POGUE

[ETL]

For an operating system that took five years to create, Windows Vista’s reputation went down in flames amazingly quickly. Not since Microsoft Bob has anything from the software giant drawn so much contempt and derision. Not every company lives to see the day when its customers beg, plead and sign petitions to bring back the previous version of its flagship product.

One thing’s for sure: it won’t take Microsoft five years to produce the next Windows. The company wants to put Vista behind it as soon as possible. In fact, the next version of Windows is almost here already. It’s called Windows 7, and it’s available as a free download, in surprisingly smooth, stable test form, from microsoft.com/springboard (until Saturday).

It looks and works a lot like Vista. In fact, what Microsoft seems to be going for in Windows 7 is “Vista, fixed.”

[shorty_harris]

I skipped both XP and Vista. But all the hype about windows 7 got me curious, so I donwloaded the beta. I installed it as a virtual machine using Virtualbox, but it won’t connect to the network. So it’s DOA, as far as I’m concerned.

[ShadowAce]

Vista 64 bit is smooth as silk.

I have to disagree here.

I ran Vista 64-bit on a new Dell Core2Duo with 4G of RAM and it was never stable, nor did it run some programs I need to run for work--VMware Server, Sonicwall NetExtender--and it did not run the Google Chrome installer. At all.

It wouldn't hibernate at all.

Vista 64-bit is crap.

[PetroniusMaximus]

“I’m posting from Vista right now using FF for a browser. It is not nearly as bad as its reputation.”

You posted THAT using Vista!!!???!!!

To be honest, your post was quite bad. Perhaps worse than you think.

I just thought you were a poor poster, but now I see that it’s Vista.

[smith288]

[martin_fierro]

[Ingtar]

I had two complaints about Vista, though my machine is really too low to be running it. Creative drivers never seemed to get surround sound right. They crash and cause problems with my XFI gamer card. Video did not play as well, especially Quicktime. It works much better back on XP. With a computer capable of 64 bit processing, I would likely have been fine. If they had left it the way it was at points in beta, it would have been fine...

[McGruff]

I've been running the Windows 7 Beta for 2 weeks now and can't find an issue with it yet. All my Vista programs and utilities work. World of Warcraft runs at 45-60 FPS. I think it's a keeper unless you've got and old computer.

[smith288]

I run Vista 64 and its smooth, fast and very capable. Chrome works fine and Visual Studio runs nicely. Dell Precision 390 x64 with Intel CoreDuo 1.8 ghz and 4gb ram.

[messierhunter]

Like of course it’s going to be slow if you have a crappy computer get over it

Ubuntu runs just fine on my wife's crappy computer, the most stripped-down version of Vista doesn't.

[smith288]

I have an old Toshiba Satellite M35x-s111 and Vista wouldnt install on it. Puked at the ACPI portion of the install (power saving features). Windows 7 installed happily on it and runs like a charm.

[The Great RJ]

Windows Vista... the 21st century Windows ME.

[brityank]

I have both XP/SP2 on my desktop, and Vista on my laptop. Only one of the XP updates blew me away early last year, and that was because of ZASS; all of the others were seamless. The three updates for Vista have blown out every time, requiring me to go in and reset all my pointers and links to my home network. Vista plain sucks!

The stress isn't too bad inside my little padded room!       ;^)

[Lexinom]

Right, what you said. You can ask the question the other way: Why does Vista require such a powerful machine for acceptable baseline performance? Why is the onus always on the hardware? Why can't we question the efficiency of the software?

Fix the software and its bloat, and it should run acceptably on a machine like your wife's.

[SkyDancer]

[Mr. Jazzy]

Don’t know what to tell you about your situation, but I have installed Vista 64 on five home built systems using the Business and Premium and had nothing but success. Used AMD and Intel multi core and the only problem I’ve had were with some board drivers from MSI and ASUS. Updated them from the manufacturers web site and all better!

Hibernate has NEVER been a good thing for computers, not surprised you had problems with it.

[Sig Sauer P220]

Microsoft made Windows XP too well. I use Windows XP (Service Pack 3) with Firefox 3.0.5. Both work excellently and so I see no need to pay in order to “upgrade” to either Windows Vista or Windows 7. Aero glass is not even close to being enough of an incentive.

And yet Microsoft has the ability to send an upgrade anytime that will completely hose your XP, causing you to have to buy their Vista POC.

[IYAS9YAS]

Here are a couple of questions for anyone who can answer them: Is there a fix for the Vista (I have the 64-bit) problem of not going into screensaver mode if you have a wireless mouse? No problems on the XP. With the wired mouse plugged in, the screen saver works fine. Something about the human interface device, but I can't get update to fix it.

Also, my speakers emit a popping sound at about a 80 pops/second.

My speakers and mouse are 5 years old and came from my old XP machine. Neither problem existed on my old machine.

[Sig Sauer P220]

Not everyone can have, or wants, the latest, fastest, most powerful PC on the market. My PC is 3 years old, running XP Pro excellently and considered a dinosaur (939 socket AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core 4200+ - two 2.2GHz processors, 2 gig of PC3200 DDR RAM in four 512meg DIMMs). Even my GPU is considered old - 256meg DDR3 PCIe 8600GT, but it runs TDU very well, and that's all I care about. I want to see the shakeout of the 45 nm quad-processors and nvidia quad-SLI price drops before I invest in a new machine. BTW, they're dropping Vista into PC's that shouldn't be running it. My wife bought a PC for herself without me there to stop her (she said she couldn't resist the price, and she needed a new PC!); it's a Compaq 1.6GHz dual-core with 1 gig (two DIMMs), running Vista HP! There are only two RAM slots, and the max the BIOS can handle is two gig! I replaced her RAM with 2 gig, and it still has trouble running all of her SIMS 2 add-on packs (takes forever to load!).

I run Spybot, Ccleaner and Defraggler on it religiously, but it's still slower than drying paint.

(snore)Couldn't you have given a geek alert before you started in with this? :)

[gigster]

I’m running on XP, and dread the day that I have to replace it. I do realize that many people have vastly different needs than me,but this does everything I need, right now.
Good infomation though.

[r9etb]

Windows 7 is to Vista, as XP was to Windows ME.