Windows Vista is Sh1t

mfin

I can't believe just how bad a performer Windows Vista is. It is FOREVER either churning away seeming to do nothing, taking forever to boot and shut down, updating this, updating that. What a pile of complete sh1t it is. I don't even want the over-bloated, useless features it has... and why is it that the similar features on a Mac just work?

XP was never that bad... I have 2 Vista computers, 1 Desktop, 1 Laptop and they're both so frustrating. Then Ive got a far less powerful Desktop XP machine thats always loads more reactive and is bearable to use ...and then Ive got a MacBook, which is an absolute joy to use.

Ive come to the conclusion that Microsoft are complete sh1t... you get these things going and then hard drives churn forever... always doing something... you turn off all the search indexing and still off it goes, f*cking about.

Surely this is not just me???

Windows 7 better be good but Ive got a nasty feeling I'll install it on a nice clean harddisk and within 30minutes I'll be pulling teeth. Since having my MacBook Ive got 4 other over-the-moon people on them.

If you don't need a PC for some software reason then get a Mac.

pneumatic

Agreed!

My "upgrade" to a Vista laptop has caused me so much pain over the past year that I have resolved that it will be my last. Half the effing machine's memory is taken up with the sodding operating system! Average boot up time is 8 minutes :roll: Error messages per day average about 3 :evil: Half my external hardware (scanner, PDA, Phone etc..) was incompatible :twisted:

It is a MAC for me next time. Microsoft, like British Leyland, have had their chance.

cee

mfin wrote:

Windows 7 better be good .

it is....

although if you are a mac user you will constantly be saying...thats been on a mac for ages...

interstingly...updating to 7 from vista is a total cinch...took me about 30 minutes.

redddraggon

Windows Vista is fine, I've been running it on my Desktop since it came out, and it's had way less issues than XP ever had.

GiantMike

I'm running XP on an old laptop and it started to run really really slowly. I uninstalled the BT internet software and firewall/anti-virus and now it runs like a dream. I'm considering stripping it back to just Explorer and using it as an 'internet-only' laptop with no important files on and no protection.

mfin

Just thought Id time the laptops before I smash this Vista one....

Dell XPS M1330 T7500 2.20Ghz Core2Duo with 2Gb Ram - Vista SP2
(has Microsoft Security Essentials installed as AV cos thats the quickest to load if not the best)
160Gb 7200rpm Faster Hard Disk

---- vs ----

MacBook with SnowLeopard 1.83Ghz CoreDuo (*** NOT Core2Duo ***) 2Gb Ram
Standard 5400rpm 60Gb Hard Disk

(NOTE: The Vista Machine is clean as a whistle, thats a fresh hard-disk with Vista installed with ALL updates and all indexing turned off with all unnecessary proprietory Dell software cr@p removed... the MacBook is not clean at all however, there's lots on it... both have OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird installed too)

........................................................................................Vista...........................Mac
Time to boot whole system, all icons, ready to use ........2:20...........................0:42
Time elapsed by the time all HD activity has stops...........7:55...........................0:49
(that's both timed from the button on press)
Time to shut down from 'shutdown click' ........................0:35...........................0:03

Seeing as the PC is the MORE POWERFUL!!! that seems ridiculous... plus the fact that Vista will keep doing updates every day or so which slows all this down again dramatically !!!

iainf72

I've been running Windows 7 since it RTM'd with no problems.

I'd avoid upgrading from Vista and rather rebuild.

Easily the best MS OS in a long time.

mfin

Oh ...I also have 3 hard disks in one of my Desktops so I can boot XP, Vista or Linux and the Vista one is absolutely terrible on that too, enough for me to want to kick it.

redddraggon

Vista is slow to boot up yes, so hibernate or leave it running

I'm jumping ship to Win7 soon, just because I can get Win7 Pro for £30.

fatblokefromwarwick

Happened to buy my laptop the same week Vista was released & never had a problem with it :!:

mfin

redddraggon wrote:

Vista is slow to boot up yes, so hibernate or leave it running

I'm jumping ship to Win7 soon, just because I can get Win7 Pro for £30.

I do hibernate it... my MacBook can boot quicker than the Dell can come out of Hibernation!!

Look....

Vista out of Hibernation in 0:48 ...churning HDD stopped at 3:22

mfin

fatblokefromwarwick wrote:

Happened to buy my laptop the same week Vista was released & never had a problem with it :!:

This isn't a problem... this is how it is! ...some people don't care if their computer takes ages to boot when you think of the hardware that's in it.... when you have other computers and OS's sat around to compare it too you get more frustrated with it for sure... the Mac really opened my eyes bigtime.

guinea

I have a new copy of Win7 delivered from Amazon ready to be installed tonight.

Wish me luck.

fatblokefromwarwick

mfin wrote:

fatblokefromwarwick wrote:

Happened to buy my laptop the same week Vista was released & never had a problem with it :!:

This isn't a problem... this is how it is! ...some people don't care if their computer takes ages to boot when you think of the hardware that's in it.... when you have other computers and OS's sat around to compare it too you get more frustrated with it for sure... the Mac really opened my eyes bigtime.

Mine's definitely not slow running. Some of the problems are caused by running conflicting antivirus software or simply having dozens of desktop shortcuts trying to open on boot up.

afx237vi

I have a 3 year old really-rather-average laptop running Windows Vista and have never had any problems with it.

Granted, I only ever use it for web surfing / music / word processing and the like, but so do 99 per cent of the population. It does what I want it to do. It takes maybe 3 minutes to boot up... big deal.

Decent Windows laptop = £500
Cheapest Macbook = £900

What do people with Macbook's use them for? Oh yeah, web surfing / music / word processing. Same as everyone else.

andyp

But they look cool!

finchy

afx237vi wrote:

Decent Windows laptop = £500
Cheapest Macbook = £900

What do people with Macbook's use them for? Oh yeah, web surfing / music / word processing. Same as everyone else.

Funny, mine cost me £650 a year ago, and it wasn't in a sale. And because I don't need anti-virus software, that's some money saved (I know there's free stuff, but too many people I know have had problems with it). I've got OpenOffice installed for a nice round sum of zero pounds, no problems with Microsoft compatibility there.

It's also nice just to have a machine that is simple, and installing software takes 5 minutes. I'm not a computer geek and I really, really appreciate that.

Hopefully I will never, ever have to buy another Windows machine again.

cee

iainf72 wrote:

I've been running Windows 7 since it RTM'd with no problems.

I'd avoid upgrading from Vista and rather rebuild.

Easily the best MS OS in a long time.

nah...the new upgrade path is absolutely awesome....done two machines with full VS2008 dev env already installed and it worked like a beut.

redddraggon

johnfinch wrote:

It's also nice just to have a machine that is simple, and installing software takes 5 minutes. I'm not a computer geek and I really, really appreciate that.

5 minutes!!!! Apart from the likes of Video games which take up GBs of space, most programs on my Vista machines take less than 30 seconds to install.

I'd be a bit annoyed too if it took me 5mins to install a game too though :roll:

afx237vi

johnfinch wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

Decent Windows laptop = £500
Cheapest Macbook = £900

What do people with Macbook's use them for? Oh yeah, web surfing / music / word processing. Same as everyone else.

Funny, mine cost me £650 a year ago, and it wasn't in a sale. And because I don't need anti-virus software, that's some money saved (I know there's free stuff, but too many people I know have had problems with it). I've got OpenOffice installed for a nice round sum of zero pounds, no problems with Microsoft compatibility there.

It's also nice just to have a machine that is simple, and installing software takes 5 minutes. I'm not a computer geek and I really, really appreciate that.

Hopefully I will never, ever have to buy another Windows machine again.

The cheapest one here is £799.

http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook/

OK, not £900 as I originally said, but still way more expensive than the average laptop.

I use free virus software and OpenOffice as well, btw. Apart from the OS itself I don't think I've ever paid for software in my life. There is virtually always an open source, free alternative.

freehub

I don't understand why people moan about how **** Vista apparently is, maybe it's cause it actually ran fine for me, I've used it since before it arrived at RC1, I've being using Windows 7 since last year now and it's a tad faster than Windows Vista, looks better, the new system sounds can be abit annoying, the constant drumb on IE is annoying, but I don't use IE and if I could be arsed I could just disable them.

Anyone who has disk churning problems on Vista have a go at going into services and disabling Windows search and/or superfetch.

Disabling superfetch might actually decrease performance though, Windows search on the other hand does not do a huge amount.

Windows Vista runs much better than XP, I always notice with XP it starts to slow down eventually and just get abit sluggish but Vista/Win 7 keeps on churning along forever.

mfin

If all you want is an beautifully easy to use computer for surfing, emails and office-like jobs then the experience of owning a Mac is defintely pleasurably simple... its amazing how we get used to Windows.....

One guy said that most apps only take 30seconds to install on a PC, they're no slower or different on the Mac, just depends on the size of the App you're installing. You won't install Photoshop or Corel X4 in 30 seconds that's for sure.

Another little annoyance for example... go to Add/Remove Software or whatever its called on a PC and chances are you'll get the message 'please wait while the list is populated' adn all that... none of that on a mac... and get CCleaner on the go for registry cleanups and see all the sh1t left behind by software installed then uninstalled... none of that on a Mac.

Im not a 'pro-mac' person... I have to work on PCs... but I wish I didn't have to!!!

freehub

mfin wrote:

pp you're installing. You won't install Photoshop or Corel X4 in 30 seconds that's for sure.

Another little annoyance for example... go to Add/Remove Software or whatever its called on a PC and chances are you'll get the message 'please wait while the list is populated' adn all that... none of that on a mac... and get CCleaner on the go for registry cleanups and see all the sh1t left behind by software installed then uninstalled... none of that on a Mac.

!

Regarding Add/Remove Software, I don't get that, most likely due to super slow computers, if you run a half decent dual core with half a gig of ram and don't ram **** down it you'll never have problems, and I admit I do use CCleaner, when I've uninstalled something it does find stuff now and again, but does it decrease performance? Not really, I just do it for the feeling of clean and tidyness not that it makes a difference.

finchy

redddraggon wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

It's also nice just to have a machine that is simple, and installing software takes 5 minutes. I'm not a computer geek and I really, really appreciate that.

5 minutes!!!! Apart from the likes of Video games which take up GBs of space, most programs on my Vista machines take less than 30 seconds to install.

I'd be a bit annoyed too if it took me 5mins to install a game too though :roll:

I include time taken to download the software first though. I've only installed Open Office, some music programs and photo editing software, and once I've actually downloaded them it doesn't even take 10 sec to install.

As a bonus, I haven't had a single virus on the Mac in the year I've had it. 8)

redddraggon

johnfinch wrote:

redddraggon wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

It's also nice just to have a machine that is simple, and installing software takes 5 minutes. I'm not a computer geek and I really, really appreciate that.

5 minutes!!!! Apart from the likes of Video games which take up GBs of space, most programs on my Vista machines take less than 30 seconds to install.

I'd be a bit annoyed too if it took me 5mins to install a game too though :roll:

I include time taken to download the software first though. I've only installed Open Office, some music programs and photo editing software, and once I've actually downloaded them it doesn't even take 10 sec to install.

As a bonus, I haven't had a single virus on the Mac in the year I've had it. 8)

It's just a shame Macs aren't as useful isn't it?

wheezee

I don't know why people have to be so tribal about their computers. They're just machines like anything else. I mean you wouldn't get people on here claiming Campagnolo were better than Shimano or vice-versa, would you?


Each has it's place: Macs for designers, Linux for developers, Windows for gamers.

iainf72

mfin wrote:

Another little annoyance for example... go to Add/Remove Software or whatever its called on a PC and chances are you'll get the message 'please wait while the list is populated' adn all that... none of that on a mac... and get CCleaner on the go for registry cleanups and see all the sh1t left behind by software installed then uninstalled... none of that on a Mac.

Those things are more of a packaging issue than Windows issue.

If Mac OS ran on as much kit as MS OS's does, and had the kind of install base MS OS's have, how stable do you think it would be? Ditto if you put Linux in front of as many users as Windows is used by it would also have as many problems.

In a corporate world, it's hard to fault Microsoft for their support and basically that's what it boils down to. When things go tits up, you can probably get to speak to the guy who wrote it if things get bad enough

I'm a big fan of Apple things, use Linux but think the slagging off MS takes is not really warrranted.

rapid_uphill

i use vista but only because im a microsoft technician, it really does suck. if i had a choice i would go back to xp.

balthazar

redddraggon wrote:

It's just a shame Macs aren't as useful isn't it?

Aren't as useful for what?!

mfin

Just to put in perspective, Ive built stacks of computers, worked in IT in retailing and support for years. There's nothing inherently 'wrong' with the computers Im refering too and the specs are high, I'm not saying Im some expert, cos I'm not, but Im pretty savvy with all this stuff. Think as I get older I find myself more annoyed with OS problems that years ago I would have tinkered my way through.

My main machine is XP Pro... has separate Vista HDD in it so I can boot to that, the plan was to move across to the fresh OS install of Vista but it never happened cos it proved to be awful. Having said that, I never moaned much about my Dell notebook either... but now I have the Mac the frustrations have all come out !!!

WIndows 7 on its way as of this afternoon so it would be nice if I end up thinking 'wow' instead of the 'f*cking hell' I thought about Vista.

freehub

rapid_uphill wrote:

i use vista but only because im a microsoft technician, it really does suck. if i had a choice i would go back to xp.

A microsoft technician?, I suppose this means you know of all those improvements they've done under the hood then and how much better and advanced than XP it really is?

mfin wrote:

Just to put in perspective, Ive built stacks of computers, worked in IT in retailing and support for years. There's nothing inherently 'wrong' with the computers Im refering too and the specs are high, I'm not saying Im some expert, cos I'm not, but Im pretty savvy with all this stuff. Think as I get older I find myself more annoyed with OS problems that years ago I would have tinkered my way through.

My main machine is XP Pro... has separate Vista HDD in it so I can boot to that, the plan was to move across to the fresh OS install of Vista but it never happened cos it proved to be awful. Having said that, I never moaned much about my Dell notebook either... but now I have the Mac the frustrations have all come out !!!

WIndows 7 on its way as of this afternoon so it would be nice if I end up thinking 'wow' instead of the 'f*cking hell' I thought about Vista.

You won't like Windows 7, it's not massivly different from Vista, but I do noticed how allot of loyal XP fanboys suddenly say how awesome Windows 7 is, it just goes to show the amount of human sheep their are.