Posted on 03/09/2008 5:23:13 PM PDT by Obi-Wandreas
"They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know.
By RANDALL STROSS ONE year after the birth of Windows Vista, why do so many Windows XP users still decline to “upgrade”?
Microsoft says high prices have been the deterrent. Last month, the company trimmed prices on retail packages of Vista, trying to entice consumers to overcome their reluctance. In the United States, an XP user can now buy Vista Home Premium for $129.95, instead of $159.95.
An alternative theory, however, is that Vista’s reputation precedes it. XP users have heard too many chilling stories from relatives and friends about Vista upgrades that have gone badly. The graphics chip that couldn’t handle Vista’s whizzy special effects. The long delays as it loaded. The applications that ran at slower speeds. The printers, scanners and other hardware peripherals, which work dandily with XP, that lacked the necessary software, the drivers, to work well with Vista.
Can someone tell me again, why is switching XP for Vista an “upgrade”?"
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Meanwhile, her 4-year old iBook runs Leopard 10.5.2 just fine; the only thing it won't do on hers is the translucent menu bar (which she can't stand anyway).
My laptop came with VISTA.
It wouldn’t run a lot of my programs and I finally formatted it off the drives and UP graded back to XP.
I found it to be very slow booting and loading and a resource hog.
VISTA also froze my laptop up on several occasions.
Upgrading Windows makes little sense. It actually takes a year or two for hardware makers to catch up with new versions of Windows. When XP came along the cheapo computers were delivered with 256 megs of memory. This was a big mistake.
Since Vista was first delivered, CPU power per dollar has increased by 50 percent, more than offsetting the performance drag of XP. It is also possible to get a decent video card for $70. Not a game quality screamer, but one capable of displaying Vista’s features.
I’ve been told Vista has all sorts of problems. I plan to stick with XP until someone whose opinion I respect tells me Vista is now OK.
I’ll be buying a new computer later this year, and I’ve already been promised by Dell that I can buy it with the new XP AND NOT with VISTA!!
the remote desktop function was dramatically better. a few other features were infinitely nicer but the entire ‘cancel or continue’ thing is something I’d like to personally beat some MS programmer over. Having to ‘continue or cancel’ is like having to press 1 for English.
That being said, I’ve got both MAC and Dell laptops and I still use the Dell more for business. Maybe I’m just not hip enough to really like MAC or I haven’t made enough effort to have it ‘grow’ on me.
Yep, it has NOTHING to do with cost.
None the less, all my other PC's still have XP on them. I see no advantages on my Vista machine.
I am SORRY that I got a DELL with Vista. I tried to write them a personal letter that came back! It is easier to crack the code to get into the computers at the PENTAGON than to be able to speak in ENGLISH to someone at Dell. I tried to roll back to XP, and it wouldn’t let me. I sold mine in France. I pity the poor people that had to find drivers to get it to run. I’m using Apple, I saw the light! And I don’t have so many ISSUES that cause my blood pressure to rise. Life is a bit easier now.
Maureen Dowd?
After working with Vista for six months, I trashed it and returned to XP. It is slow, especially for gaming, as compared to XP and the security in it is way overplayed. It is cumbersome and unwieldy to work with. I personally do not like it -— and it is gone. Am now back with XP Pro and doing just fine.
The really irritating thing is getting drivers for both software programs but more especially for other HardWare. HP is currently 9 months behind the promised driver for their HP LaserJet 1000, but still promising one.
Color me finished with HP products.
That should read 250 GB Hard Drive
I can’t get certain Quicktime productions to perform on Vista. I’ve had trouble with internet connectivity (which fixed itself after one of the gazillion patches was installed that have gone out). I like the gadgets, but some are huge CPU hogs. So, like you, I don’t really see much of an advantage. Plus, I had to learn the new Office components which are snazzy, but who wants to learn something new when the old works just fine.
Hey, I’ve got a piece of fresh frozen dog crap my dog dropped in the snow. I will sell it to you for $500.
What, you won’t buy it?
OK, I’ll drop the price to $350. How does that sound?
No?
OK, I’ll throw in some yellow snow for free! From the same dog, too!
My company laptop runs on Vista. I does some odd stuff including lots of freeze ups, bad boots and I swear at any given time I’m one keystroke away from a full crash.
Did anybody else read “Fire in the Valley”? How about see the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”.
Gates is a High School drop out who bought MS DOS from a brilliant programmer in his garage who was too stupid to know what he had for a couple of grand.
The rest is history.
Is this a great country or what?
I’ve got 2 complaints with Vista, that are really inexcusable.
1. No OpenGL support. OpenGL (Open Graphics Language) is a largely unregulated, but very powerful and common approach taken by gamers and by workstations. AutoCAD, OrCAD, Doom, Quake, AutoCAD Inventor, AutoCAD 3D and Photoshop, to mention a few, all use OpenGL.
To intentionally drop support for these programs that are ESSENTIAL to several classes of industry is to sabotage your customer. Imagine the startup where a man invests his retirement to buy new machines in the hopes of realizing his dream - only to discover that his dream is doomed because Microsoft abandoned OpenGL without warning, notice or a disclaimer of any type.
2. Same game, same hardare but different Operations Systems have shown that now only does WinXP perform faster, it also is less prone to system errors. So, buy a new game for your $2,500 PC and you’ll find that this machine with VISTA plays your new game slower than your 3 year old PC. This is not an upgrade - this is theft by deception.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.