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Published on November 7, 2007 By Dan Greene In Personal Computing
I've had an OEM copy of Vista Ultimate 64 bit version, with all the updates installed expect the foreign language ones, for about a month now. This article details the features which I do not like.

7. Instant search tool, great useless tool, the constant indexing of my hard drive has not actually made it any easier to find what I was looking for. Sure if know the exact name of a file or the general size yeah I can save time because I don't have to wait for a search to complete, but I generally have to do several searches to find what I am looking for. Still not very helpful

6. Inconsistent loading of the OS. I turned on my comp when I came home and just let it sit, didn't log in nothing, went to watch some tv for a bit, had dinner, came back to a blank screen, a solid on harddrive light and dvd rw drive light on solid, no signal to the monitor. I pressed the spacebar, wiggled the mouse, tried esc, then CRTL + ALT + DEL, nothing changed. I had to reboot because Vista feel off a cliff while I wasn't using it. Fucking lame.

5. UAC, nuff said, annoying as fuck, turning it off, in my system tray the red shield icon sits, unable to ever get that out of there, every once in a while when Vista feels like pushing my buttons, it pops up like the robot from lost in space "DANGER DANGER" whatever. When you turn off a feature in Windows it should go away, and bother you no longer. Not the UAC, I'm sure there is a hack, but I am seriously not motivated enough to figure it out cause I am just gonna scrap Vista if SP1 doesn't radically change my mind.

4. I hate with Vista, that sometimes programs like Yahoo messenger, lock up or crash, Doom3 has done it, and it brings the OS down as well, Like I can CRTL + ALT + DEL and get to the menu of options, which are all bad execpt the task manager, which is the only thing I wanna see pop up when it happens, but when messenger dies for whatever reason, it locks the whole OS up. On XP with this same rig, via my quad core, I could just select the process, and kill it, and restart Messenger, with Vista, I can't get the power of the 3 cpus not maxxed out, to the task manager. That's bullshit Microsoft!

3. Disk utilities, specifically the defragmenter, I'll run that, then I'll run the Aus logic disk defrag, and get another 5-10% better defrag from doing that, WTF?

2. Lack of extras and I mean serious lack. There is no Windows Virus scanning, so I use AVG, but with Windows having historical vulnerability to viruses you'd think that they would be interested in providing a free anti-virus for people running Vista, but my biggest lack of extra falls into the category of Word Processing. There is no MS WORD, no EXCEL, nothing, on the "Ultimate" copy of Vista. Basically you spend $200 on an OS, and then you can spend another $150-$600 on word processing software? Seriously, a computers primary job used to be word processing and it has never really gotten away from that. Imagine, a coffee maker that doesn't brew coffee anymore, but controls your television. Where the hell is Microsoft on the ball on this one?

1. Slowness, I hate that this OS runs slower, and bogs itself down, on a monster system. It is probably more secure and maybe more stable than XP, but I was doing fine with XP SP2, security wise, and stability wise, and experiencing much more responsive OS tasking, and switching between what I was doing. Vista is all bullshit when it says you can do more with more.

There are only two benefits that Vista has going for it, one is DX10 and DX10.1, and being able to handle more than 4 GB RAM. That's it. I have decided that everything else about Vista is either pure fluff or less than the value offered by XP.

[MOVED FROM BELOW DUE TO JU's PISS POOR EDITING SCHEME]

Well here are a few things I would have included in the Vista Ultimate package.

1. Better Speech Recognition The Vista Speech Recognition menu is slightly faster but it doesn't seem to recognize my speech any more effectively than XP. Which is sad. Gates said that he saw us using verbal speech to communicate with our computers much more than typing way back in the 70's/80's. For sure it would be faster and more efficient than typing. My first experience with speech recognition was in the days for a 500 mhz cpu. Then again with my single core 2.4 ghz processor. Now that I have a quad core, of which Vista mostly doesn't utilize, the experience has not significantly improved. This type of a program could/would vastly improve the versatility of an OS. It would also give Windows a feature other OS's don't have setting them apart.

2. Real Word Processing: MS WORD Where is the Word Processor for Vista? Oh yeah it's in another $500 upgrade package aside from the OS. What bullshit. They don't even include the back burner Microsoft Works anymore. They could have at least given the user MS WORD 97 or 2003 or something instead of nothing with ULTIMATE! What they did give you is the antiquated notepad which doesn't even "nextline" properly but reads text files great. Except for the free Textpad program which works even better and opens more different kinds of text files. Wordpad was also included but it's the same Wordpad as WIN95. Really is that what I'm paying for with Ultimate, a word processor that was midrange 13 years ago?

3. Faster and better performance than the previous OS Really instead of the whole sidebar crap they could have bumped the speed of the a window closing or opening from the half second you see, to something like a tenth of a second, increased the size of the red X bar so when you wanna close something, you close it on the first try every time, and instead of just renaming everything from XP to Vista, they should have errorer on the side of making fewer changes to names of things, because now everybody has to learn a whole new OS again. If I was going to have the sidebar, the first thing I'd have in there is a google map of where the computer is at, instead of a second clock, 4 inches above my digital clock on the system tray. Real big benefit Microsoft.

4. Driver Support for EVERYTHING I mean everything, Microsoft is the biggest company in the industry, they have an OS which is the basis for everything to run on and 3rd party devs to develop for, not the other way around. Vista, should have included all the drivers that XP had for programs and hardware, and automatically emulated 32bit mode when necessary. So that end users, i.e. me, don't have to go digging online to find drivers for stuff that works with XP just fine. On a 15 gigabyte install, there wasn't room for a folder with these updates/drivers?

5. Real Backward Compatibility With an Ultimate copy, or "Premium level copy" of anything, there should be support for programs that originally ran on older copies of Microsoft OS's. Start with DOS and work your way up. This should come standard, with Vista Ultimate and why not. Obviously end users aren't going to be able to remember every thing they run on XP or Win 2000 that ran on older stuff like 98SE, 95, and DOS. There are a very few but select programs that people keep and run be it because of older machines or just low IT budgets. Whatever, there is a need to run older stuff and that capability should be with Vista at the "Premium level copy" of the OS.

Comments (Page 4)
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on Nov 09, 2007
Dan - if you dislike Vista so much why are you still using it? You could buy a copy of XP you know. XP is getting cheaper to obtain especially the upgrade version...

on Nov 09, 2007
Does it take a year for the Control Panel fly out menu in the Start Panel to open for anyone else?


NT, all I can say is that you must be keeping some HEAVY DUTY tools on that control panel of yours, for it to be that slow....mine slides out in .zero of a second on 32 bit Vista Ultimate.

Tried a lubricant??
on Nov 09, 2007
i really don't have anything against Vista. it seems fast enough (oh, well, i have a string machine overall, but still, it loads and does everything in a fast pace). i guess with all the updates Vista is going to be a great, reliable OS.
only "problem" that has ever occured to me was that i had to reinstall warcraft III twice and even clean the registry for it in order to avoid some "game.dll" error after installing the latest patch; still i feel that this problem alone is not something which i should be stressing myself over.
oh, and on another note, the searching system Vista has is really a bit annoying, i prefer XP's search mechanism over this one. still, i like my Vista
on Nov 09, 2007
especially the upgrade version...


noble intententions... very bad advise.
NEVER if at all possible should you go with the upgrade version. Fresh installs of Windows are usually more trouble free.  
on Nov 09, 2007
"I believe your security has been compromised badly. You need to run a good scan on that computer for spy ware and anti-virus. You for sure have something running in the background on that system~!"

Oh bullshit, this level of performance has been the same since I installed Vista. This is isn't my first day with a computer or with OS's that run trojans and virus, popups and all the rest. If you want my running processes I'll post them, This is Vista Ultimate with updates, stock. I am running AVG anti virus and ad aware, nether is catching anything lately since I went to Vista. I think I've had a total of 3 threats since I installed it.

"Another thread that reminds me of the bloke who complained bitterly about having to eat too many shit sandwiches...yet, when ever his wife asked what he wanted for lunch, he could never be bothered to think of anything for himself: "Uh, just gimme the same shit as I had yesterday."

I just want the shit sandwich I was sold, a more secure OS, a faster bootup, and a better experience, as well as the "Ultimate extras" which are nothing more than bogus features and disappointment.

"I think you need anger management rather than XP. Maybe you should try cooling down and pushing the option to turn off the UAC warning, and maybe checking your system to see if something is installed that it doesnt like, and try compatibilty mode?"

Option to rid the UAC, done,
Checking your system to see if something installed that it doesn't like? How?
Compatibility mode, Done everything works except for Railroad Tycoon 2 which is apparently 16bit so I'm fucked unless I figure out how to run a virtual machine, which I have attempted without success.



on Nov 09, 2007
Here's a little comic relief for ya all.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1537662573997376122&q=vista&total=59793&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

My favorite part

"Oh I'll get it to work in this one" "It's loaded" LOL.
on Nov 09, 2007
unless I figure out how to run a virtual machine, which I have attempted without success.


VMWare workstation: It's not rocket science.

I think that the longer you keep up the tone, the less that you will get serious responses also.
on Nov 09, 2007
7. Instant search tool


I like that feature.

6. Inconsistent loading of the OS


I was surprised that they did not fix that issue. I had that issue from beta 1 days. What kind of prioritization these guys do?

5. UAC, nuff said

After using Linux for a while I started liking UAC.

1) The start menu
2) The start menu
3) The start menu
4) The start menu
5) The start menu
6) The start menu
7) The start menu
The single largest step backwards in O/S history. Who ever designed that folder system should be keel-hauled.


Depends on who you are asking. For someone who has tons of applications, a 10 foot long programs menu was messy to deal with. On Vista, I can just type in few letters and voila!

You should try skinning it, the skinning of the start menu has been significantly restricted now in Vista


I guess skinning was not one of the top priorities when they designed the new UI.

Anyway, why should you use a keyboard to find an app?


Better than scrolling through a very long list.

Most people that say they can't run Dreams, their specs contain 8000 series cards.


I have an ATI X850 Pro and cannot run the Dreams! My system goes nuts.

a more secure OS, a faster bootup, and a better experience, as well as the "Ultimate extras" which are nothing more than bogus features and disappointment.

M$ may have their own defintions for them. Why don't you spell out yours.
on Nov 09, 2007
7 things couldnt cover it.Theres way more to dislike(hate even)about Vista.
I'm not even thinking about how stable,quick,or secure.(it runs fine even on my borderline system)

It accesses the hard drive too much,especially at boot...seems to go on way too long.

It shut down my system without asking to install updates.(and would I please not power off the pc til it was done...with 27 of them)  

The start menu is horrible...a scrolling programs menu?(flyout menus are configurable,if your letting stuff pile up in there til its too freaking big,your not managing your pc very well.  )

I HATE search bars!Dont need them,dont use them and you cant remove them.

Where are my toolbars?!That lame horizontal one sux...and you get more crappy search and address bars...that you cant remove.I want my up,delete,etc...BACK!

One window view for ALL windows...change something in one window,it propagates to all others.

In the mistaken attempt at ease of use they went with obscurity...hide enough stuff and stupid people will THINK its easier.(SKS6 went down this same ignorant path)

Tabbed interfaces were fine...Vista has to open a config window for everything

Too many useless processes...

Taskbar toolbars are not removable.

Systray icons that are unhideable or unremovable.

No options for using XP type gui anywhere...its Aero or classic...booooooooooo!

Ultimate extras not so ultimate.  

Those horrible logoff buttons...yeah,clicked on the wrong one a few times and the system did dumb stuff...thats not even possible in XP.

Aero looks like it was designed by 3 different people...and that just leads to a long list of why it sux to skin.  

Thats all I can think of without actually booting into it...god forbid.  

on Nov 10, 2007
I also HATE disk accesses on Vista. I'm tired of that blue light flash... flash... flash.. flash... flash... flash all tome. >
on Nov 10, 2007
"may have their own defintions for them. Why don't you spell out yours."

Well here are a few things I would have included in the Vista Ultimate package.

1. Better Speech Recognition The Vista Speech Recognition menu is slightly faster but it doesn't seem to recognize my speech any more effectively than XP. Which is sad. Gates said that he saw us using verbal speech to communicate with our computers much more than typing way back in the 70's/80's. For sure it would be faster and more efficient than typing. My first experience with speech recognition was in the days for a 500 mhz cpu. Then again with my single core 2.4 ghz processor. Now that I have a quad core, of which Vista mostly doesn't utilize, the experience has not significantly improved. This type of a program could/would vastly improve the versatility of an OS. It would also give Windows a feature other OS's don't have setting them apart.

2. Real Word Processing: MS WORD Where is the Word Processor for Vista? Oh yeah it's in another $500 upgrade package aside from the OS. What bullshit. They don't even include the back burner Microsoft Works anymore. They could have at least given the user MS WORD 97 or 2003 or something instead of nothing with ULTIMATE! What they did give you is the antiquated notepad which doesn't even "nextline" properly but reads text files great. Except for the free Textpad program which works even better and opens more different kinds of text files. Wordpad was also included but it's the same Wordpad as WIN95. Really is that what I'm paying for with Ultimate, a word processor that was midrange 13 years ago?

3. Faster and better performance than the previous OS Really instead of the whole sidebar crap they could have bumped the speed of the a window closing or opening from the half second you see, to something like a tenth of a second, increased the size of the red X bar so when you wanna close something, you close it on the first try every time, and instead of just renaming everything from XP to Vista, they should have errorer on the side of making fewer changes to names of things, because now everybody has to learn a whole new OS again. If I was going to have the sidebar, the first thing I'd have in there is a google map of where the computer is at, instead of a second clock, 4 inches above my digital clock on the system tray. Real big benefit Microsoft.

4. Driver Support for EVERYTHING I mean everything, Microsoft is the biggest company in the industry, they have an OS which is the basis for everything to run on and 3rd party devs to develop for, not the other way around. Vista, should have included all the drivers that XP had for programs and hardware, and automatically emulated 32bit mode when necessary. So that end users, i.e. me, don't have to go digging online to find drivers for stuff that works with XP just fine. On a 15 gigabyte install, there wasn't room for a folder with these updates/drivers?

5. Real Backward Compatibility With an Ultimate copy, or "Premium level copy" of anything, there should be support for programs that originally ran on older copies of Microsoft OS's. Start with DOS and work your way up. This should come standard, with Vista Ultimate and why not. Obviously end users aren't going to be able to remember every thing they run on XP or Win 2000 that ran on older stuff like 98SE, 95, and DOS. There are a very few but select programs that people keep and run be it because of older machines or just low IT budgets. Whatever, there is a need to run older stuff and that capability should be with Vista at the "Premium level copy" of the OS.

6. Everybody
on Nov 10, 2007

Does it take a year for the Control Panel fly out menu in the Start Panel to open for anyone else? All other menus open fast but Control Panel is sloooooooooooooooooooooow.

Anyone else?

on Vista Ultimate


I can't see any reason why you can't adjust the menu speed in Vista as you can in xp, you can either make the registry edit manually or a real quick way is to use microsofts powertoy tweakui & use the slider to increase the time it takes or decrease,come to think of it ain't one of the apps in objectdesktop got that function adjustment
on Nov 10, 2007
You know what I really hate is when people jump in before you are finishied composing a post. Thanks Xscorp

Based on the times, it's quite clear you either didn't have a refreshed copy of the page open or didn't care that I was tidying up my post lol

November 10, 2007 03:04:45
November 10, 2007 03:06:39

LOL No worries, I'll just move this all to the top
on Nov 10, 2007
Tip for WB users: If you don't like the start menu search box, just use SK6 to set start menu search box the vertical margin to 50 - you'll never see the search box again
on Nov 10, 2007
Option to rid the UAC, done,
Checking your system to see if something installed that it doesn't like? How?
Compatibility mode, Done everything works except for Railroad Tycoon 2 which is apparently 16bit so I'm fucked unless I figure out how to run a virtual machine, which I have attempted without success.


Spyware, adware scans etc.

Switching to 32bit Vista will allow you to run 16-bit programs again.
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