This is where I post, and you can post too!
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 9)
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on Nov 12, 2007
But it still fucks up a lot and is clunky. It also doesn't go fast enough for me.


Dan....I've reached two conclusions!!

#1 You are rarely (if at all) satisfied with anything 'Vista"

#2 You use profanity to demonstrate the extent of your dissatisfaction.

Now the resident WC MD would suggest psychiatric counseling and perhaps anger management. but I think that's probably a bit drastic.

My recommendation would be to take 2 XP's with a glass of water and go to bed, with luck the Vista rage 'll pass overnight and you can find a new cause to cuss over.
on Nov 12, 2007
Alright, I opened up as many programs as I could think of, as well as 50 Firefox and explorer windows. vista_stable.jpg (click me)

However, when trying to post that, DWM crashed, so I went into Services and tried to restart it. Unfortunately... vista_error.jpg (click me)

Ah well, it must just be my system, if I had a better one DWM wouldn't have crashed.
on Nov 12, 2007
I've not had any BAD experiences with Vista, just some major 3rd party software issues. I'm running Vista Business on a Dell Laptop. its a 3G processor, 2G ram and 2X 130G HD. Screams with the XPpro disk in it. Runs fine with the Vista Disk. My biggest issue is going to be: before I can roll out Vista here at the office, I'm going to have to upgrade 35 machines and replace another 40, and just can't justify that cost with the issues I'm having trying to run our Medical Billing, EMR and Document Archive packages.

of note.. I installed MS's Virtual PC (free DL) on the Vista drive, and loaded XP pro on it, now I seem to have the best of both worlds. The Vista Host runs fine and the XP Virtual is just fabulous.

The Citrix client even runs great in Vista attaching to an old MetaFrame 8 Citrix box.

Dave
on Nov 14, 2007
from the get go if you are planning to use vista on anything under 1gb of ram you are asking for trouble. make sure you have the latest grafix drivers for your pc because every new version solves yet another problem. i have been running ultimate for about 3 months now, and the only issues that arise occur when new software is added you have to understand microsoft attempted to make this os as secure as possible and they wanted to make radical changes to the way they previously structured the operating systems, so dont blame the os builder, blame software companies who are to greedy to care weather their software is fully compatible with microsoft's dream. eg vista booted very quickly before instillation of roxio 10 approx 20 seconds from power on to usability after roxio 10 was installed it all fell down it now takes me approx 90 seconds to reach usability, shortcuts not accessing, random system errors, and even after i attempted to uninstall it the driver refuses to go now im looking for a way to forcefully remove driver. but to me the biggest problem with vista is the copy time.i dont think any businesses should rush toward vista though too many issues with compatibility, will hurt efficiency wait until software is fully compatible with vista make a move even worse with x64 edition. but if you are a gamer with a top of the line system and are looking for an os to show you what your hardware can really do vista is the answer.vista is faster than xp because the user interface is is hardware accelerated. windows vista is safer , i have been running vista all this time with no protection downloading files from peer to peer and downing torrents and every threat is reported to me before it can hurt me. vista is in many ways a step forward but in terms of cost a big step backward. b ut once you can afford a rig with enough ram, enough graffix and enough hdd you will b cool.


long live windows,
long live linux,
long live amd,
long live nvidia,
long live kingston,
long live thermaltake,
long live ocz,

os: vista ultimate x86
processor: athlon x2 5600+
power:ocz 700watt
mem:kingston 2x1gb ddr2 dual channel
cpu cooler: thermaltake max orb
hdd 4x250gb raid 0 seagate
mb:k9n neo f
grafix:evga 8600 gts ocd
on Nov 15, 2007
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

vista pushed to the limit

sempron 2600+ 2.0 ghz 246 fsb
nx 7300 le 128 520 mhz core 1000 mhz memory
1gb ddr 533


Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us


vista error
on Nov 17, 2007
heh, good job getting it to that state
on Nov 17, 2007
*shakes head*


on Nov 17, 2007
xaira pegusus, you should honestly get another gb of ram... vista works best with 2gb or more
on May 27, 2008
LMAO. I know this is an old post, but still. I see these kind of comments everywhere and I just want to say "Not doin it rite". I run XP and Vista both for various reasons, after years of 2K and NT. Just in case somebody else happens across this, let me put it what tips I may. We'll try to keep with your format here:
7. Instant Search Tool - you're not using it right. LOL. The indexing feature in Vista can be set to index more or less of your hard drive, and it can take a few days to adjust to new settings. Try this: http://research.microsoft.com/inkseine/vista-index-setup.htm You can either turn it off if you just don't like it, or adjust it to be more to your liking. When you're searching for a file, make sure you click advanced search and check the "search non indexed locations" box if you don't index most of your hard drive.

6. No idea what the problem is there, I've never had a user experience it.

5. UAC - If you're using Vista Enterprise or Ultimate, this fix might be your solution: Open the Run Command and type secpol.msc
This will open the Local Security Policy.
Browse through the Local Policy to the Security Policy. Click on the Security Policy folder. In the window to the right locate:
User Account Control: Behavior of the Elevation prompt for administrator's in Admin Approval Mode.
Change it to: Elevate without Prompting.
Then reboot.
Otherwise, go with the intelligent answer - disable security center and all the built in crap anyway, go with something like ESET Smart Security (NOD32).

4. As for the CTRL+ALT+DEL, why are you still using that? If you just want the task manager then use CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to load it straight away. As for the actual issue? I've seen alot of users have issues with Vista maxing cpu's due to network/internet issues. I have found that when an internet enabled application or network process locks and maxes out the cpu if you can disable or remove the network connection you will regain control of the system. Either unplug the net or disable wifi.

3. What the hell are you doing that you need to worry that much about defrag these days? True Vista's defrag is lacking, but what is a "5-10% better defrag"? Do you mean the result is 10% less fragmented after the defrag? If so, just use whatever works and ignore the built in app! Personally, I don't find routine defrags outside of what Vista does on it's own to be necessary, and I do ALOT of file transfers in and out via my home server and VNC to clients.

2. Well duh. There's no point in purchasing Ultimate unless you want to pay an extra $200 for $20 more product. Most of what is added in Ultimate can be achieved with Home Basic and some open source/freeware. (Ooh aero, ) As for word processing, ditch MSWord and get OpenOffice. It's free.

1. I see this complaint alot. Have you actually sat down and ran a benchmark, or are you sitting with two identical systems running XP and Vista side by side to compare? If not, you're results are perception.

What I would include in Vista Ultimate:
GnuGPL or at least CreativeCommons-Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative
Linux
The kitchen sink


*places tongue firmly in cheek*

Wyn
on May 27, 2008
Most of what is added in Ultimate can be achieved with Home Basic and some open source/freeware.


And a little help from Stardock. I'm reasonably sure that ODNT was cheaper than upgrading to Home Premium.
on May 28, 2008
I guess this is an old post, but oh well, somebody else replied and I felt like joining him . . .

7. Agreed. It seems the new search is like a bandage for the huge organizational problems the Start Menu has, rather than a true solution.

6. Sounds like a hardware incompatibility. You're the first person I've heard describe it.

5. Please try here instead of turning it completely off: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=436&page=4

Yes, it's a bit annoying, but it's one of the top reasons why Vista is much more secure than XP. I'd much rather people take the time to minimize its annoyances than disable it altogether.

4. See #6.

3. Microsoft never claimed their defrag was better, and it's not really a core feature of the OS. To be honest, however, people that need to do a lot of defragmenting generally need more memory, because their system is relying too much on the hard drive.

2. In this case, I'd agree with you: Ultimate is way overpriced and gives you absolutely nothing worth the cost of buying it. I'd agree that Office is seriously overpriced as well.

Unfortunately, that has little chance of changing, since Windows and Office are Microsoft's two primary money making products. They care more about making money by forcing you to buy it rather than by competitive pricing.

1. That'd pretty much how major OS upgrades work. Been that way for a long time. Can't run XP on a 486.


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.


Actually, XP also has a 64 bit version, and Vista's 64 bit versions are separate from the 32 bit versions in all but the Ultimate version.

Thankfully, buying the 64 bit version is very cheap if you already have the 32 bit version. I think it was just shipping and handling.

Better Speech Recognition


Agreed. It has more features that help the recognition, but the recognition itself is still marginal at best. I'm still always correcting and repeating my corrections.

Real Word Processing: MS WORD


Agreed, but not gonna happen. Office itself is another huge money maker for Microsoft.

Works was almost worse than nothing, because it had its own proprietary non-doc file format. At least it did the last time I used it, which was a long time ago.

Notepad is unfortunately still horrible when it comes to line endings, and WordPad still needs a spell checker - there are a gazillion free basic text editing programs that do a much better job. Why has Microsoft never fixed these programs? I'm not asking for Microsoft to turn either of them into Word - just to do a minimal amount of tweaking to make them suitable for basic word processing when you don't need a fully featured word processor like Word.

Actually, all they really need to do is to port EDIT, their old DOS word processor, to Windows - that was actually great program, and would be a decent replacement for Notepad.

I might just do that myself someday . . .

Faster and better performance than the previous OS


Unfortunately, that rules out every OS on the planet - even Linux is getting quite bloated these days, especially as they try to make Linux more like a desktop OS.

Frankly, it's hard. Everybody wants a slim OS - but everybody also wants it to be fully featured. Unfortunately, features add bloat.

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.


The defaults aren't that good, but I'd imagine most people either turn the bar off or customize it. It is, after all, designed to be a widget center that's very flexible.

(but I still like Mac OS X's widgets better - I can turn them on and off in a single keystroke)

Driver Support for EVERYTHING


Trust me - Microsoft wants this as well. They hate the driver situation as much as everybody else does. Unfortunately, the driver situation is largely out of their hands.

Emulation won't work for drivers, by the way. You can only emulate devices you know about, and drivers are all about making you know about new devices.

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.


Like Android, the OS that only works on an emulator and has no physical hardware for it yet?

Yeah, that's the fastest way to kill Windows. That plan may or may not work out for Android, but that's because it's not expected to run on any hardware yet. Windows, on the other hand, is expected to run on current machines, and losing support for those machines would kill it very quickly.

Real Backward Compatibility


Easier said than done. Even emulators and virtual machines have bugs and are often imperfect copies of older hardware.

By the way, DOSBox works great for DOS games, and Virtual PC works fine for all versions of Windows I've tested so far (although I'd love to get my hands on 3.11 someday).

Number 4 and 6 are probably resolved by now, since this post is pre-SP1 and probably when Vista was young.

Otherwise, go with the intelligent answer - disable security center and all the built in crap anyway


That's far from intelligent - third party products do not work at the lowest levels of the OS and do not provide the same services as UAC. I'd much rather people follow the link I provided above and make it less annoying rather than turning it completely off.
on May 28, 2008
wow.......another vista bashing thread...

my vista starts up every single time..and its anything but slow...i find it a smidge faster than xp.

as for the permission thing....each to their own...i dont mind it at all.

an os that comes with anti virus?..(cough)...did you want a coke and fries with that too?

i have xp and vista on my machine, its up to date, and purrs like a kitten.....i cant see why all these 'I hate vista" posts are made....I think upgrade yr system and stop complaining about a system that DOES work if its on a system thats up to scratch.....  

.......and if you really want xp back so bad, just format yr harddrive in a pc that has xp. (i wouldnt know how to do it, but that is what a friend of mine did to get xp back so he could play his xp compatable games)
on May 28, 2008
Thankfully, buying the 64 bit version is very cheap if you already have the 32 bit version. I think it was just shipping and handling.


I'd be most interested to know where this is available as I'd like to try out Vista 64 bit on my system, without the expense of having to purchase the whole thing again... $700 + for the retail version of Ultimate (which is what I'd prefer) here in Oz. Quite a few of our major retailers are selling Vista Home Premium SP1 Upgrade for between $98 and $150, and I would go with that in 64 bit at a pinch, but strangely enough, none I have inquired with carry the 64 bit version, citing it's not a good enough seller or that they have too many difficulties getting it. So yeah, (just postage and handling ) where/how do I get it?



on May 28, 2008
Try this here Starkers
WWW Link

SGT
on May 28, 2008
If you already have the 32 bit version, it's here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/64bit.mspx
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