Technology Review: Uninspiring Vista — I have a lot of problems with this review. First of all it’s a belated review of RC1 — not Vista. Second she claims to be a Windows user who hates the Mac. But she mentions the “blue screen of death.” I haven’t seen a blue screen of death in 6 years — since W2K and XP were released. Now it’s possible that she is a genuine Windows maven who hates the Mac and thus hates Vista since — for some unknown reason — a slew of Mac mavens love Vista. This oddity has cropped up in a number of TWIT conversations. Needless to say I am quite dubious about this review, to say the least. It’s ridiculous.
For most of the last two decades, I have been a Microsoft apologist. I mean, not merely a contented user of the company’s operating systems and software, not just a fan, but a champion. I have insisted that MS-DOS wasn’t hard to use (once you got used to it), that Windows 3.1 was the greatest innovation in desktop operating systems, that Word was in fact superior to WordPerfect, and that Windows XP was, quite simply, “it.”
When I was forced to use Apple’s Mac OS (versions 7.6 through 9.2) for a series of jobs, I grumbled, griped, and insisted that Windows was better. Even as I slowly acclimated at work, I bought only Windows PCs for myself and avoided my roommate’s recherché new iBook as if it were fugu. I admitted it was pretty, but I just knew that you got more computing power for your buck from an Intel-based Windows machine, and of course there was far more software available for PCs. Yet my adoration wasn’t entirely logical; I knew from experience, for example, that Mac crashes were easier to recover from than the infamous Blue Screen of Death. At the heart of it all, I was simply more used to Windows. Even when I finally bought a Mac three years ago, it was solely to meet the computing requirements of some of the publications I worked with. I turned it on only when I had to, sticking to my Windows computer for everyday tasks.
So you might think I would be predisposed to love Vista, Microsoft’s newest …
found by John “Mac” Markoff
I’ve gotten a BSOD with w2k, but not with XP.
Funny you should mention the BSOD — I saw my first one since Windows 98 when I recently tried to install Alcohol120% on Vista. Then again, I didn’t really expect it to work yet, given that they haven’t actually updated it for Vista.
On the whole I’m really enjoying Vista — and I just got back from one of Microsoft’s developer launch events and I must say that some of the work they’ve done on integrating and opening up Vista, Office and Exchange APIs for developer shows some real promise for the future of the platform (in corporations at least).
I would tend to agree with you John. if anything windows vista and osx are now kinda blurry. and the comment that she cannot run it with one gig of ram is crap my 512 meg laptop with 1.7 Pentium M runs it just fine (no areo and glass but only got 64 meg graphics card)
kinda written in a style to start a war….
send the fanbois in chanting…..
“rally the troops boys we gotta hater posting”
Agree it’s a useless review. Too bad it comes from a reputable publication as I subscribe to MIT review and find it very good.
I don’t have Vista nor fooled with the Rel candidates but all the other reviews have repeatedly pointed out that the versions after RC1 were markedly faster, more stable and more features turned on.
The blue screen of death mention was a good indicator to just stop reading the rest of the “review” altogether.
No, I’ve not seen a BSOD on my XP PC at work, but it sure does have it’s shitty days, like today… the file explorer totally crapped out and became unresponsive. Had to reboot the system.
I’ve seen BSOD on XP and Server 2003. However, BSOD usually now indicates hardware failure.
Also, you don’t always see BSOD, because it can flash by while the machine reboots itself in response to the crash/problem.
I find XP a decent OS, all the features I need but as a support tech, I must disagree. I do see the BSOD on occasion. On both XP and W2K. I have had occasions when its pops up so fast you cant read the error message and have to video it to read it. Its almost always fixable running chkdsk /r from command line, which is a pain to get to in either OS. Unless the drive is failing, its usually file corruption. I also think 1mb RAM is needed for Vista, it seems to be much more of a resource hog than XP. Compared to MAC OS which wont even wake up without 1MB Windows has always been very efficient in how it ran on less. The MAC techs here are always amazed by that.
I think it’s safe to assume that Mark means 1GB of ram
8. Yes, thanks.
8. Oh, and I would like to add I get a BSOD with VISTA when I tried to install it on my Toshiba laptop. Either by upgrade or fresh install, it indicates an outdated ACPI driver indicating power management. No update available from Toshiba. I need to get the latest release and see if it is cured. This is Beta, so I am not stressing about it.
I’ll agree this review is not worth reading. This is dcoming from someone who is NOT looking forward to Vista.
The philosophy I see in Vista is “Lets make it look as cool as possible even if it means it is harder for end users to use”
It starts with IE7. For no good reason, the highly useful to technical support “File Edit View Favorites Tools Help” menu is gone, replaced by cryptic unlabeled icons and text bars that cannot be customized in any way shape or form. Then you get creepy prompts like “Do you want to grant this site access to your clipboard?”
So I was fearing that this philosophy ran through all of Vista too, and I was right! No more friendly “Start” button, its an unlabeled “Windows Orb” now. The default settings for the program menu involves scrolling in a confined window rather than the silly looking but very user friendly cascading menus.
Not only is the DRM stuff slowing down your computer, but the highly touted search features are going to be one of the first things you disable because they are memory hogs. XP required 4 GB, Vista requires at least a “20 GB hard drive, 15 GB free”. And lets not forget the hard lock down of the kernal which will not allow many programs that run perfectly well on XP to run on Vista.
The only BSOD I have seen in XP is when my hard drive crashed. I am perfectly content with XP for the forseeable future.
Seems like a bait story.
Vista, with 1 gig ram, Firefox 2.0 , and VLC makes a very nice machine.
I have no love for IE7 or the new Media Player though…
I haven’t seen the BSOD on XP Pro since SP2. (But it also runs a lot slower too.) I do occasionally get spontaneous booting, especially when editing memory intensive video productions. I have to admit, XP has solved most of the problems it had earlier.
ArianeB,
When you are in ie7, press the alt key and the traditional menu bar pops up, then go to view-tool bars-menu bar and your menu bar will stay put.
Then when a website wants to use your clipboard, just say no, unless it is a website like google writely, they you can use copy paste in writely and calc.
Since Ive been using ie7 I have been drifing away from firefox.
15. Whoa, nice tip, I too missed the pull down menus from earlier versions. You just made my life a tad easier. Nice getting back to tech for a subject.
#7 –
Please, Mark – it might seem like picking nits, but honestly, after all these years:
Mac = Macintosh
MAC = Media Access Control – or Makeup Artist’s Cosmetics, if you prefer (which, actually, is M•A•C)
Why people continue to capitalize it as if it were an acronym instead of a proper noun, when they’ve read the name – properly capitalized – countless tens of thousands of times for 23+ years, tis truly a puzzlement.
[voice=graham chapman]Sorry. Do carry on, this is most interesting.[/voice=graham chapman]
#9 –
…pssst!…. pedro!….. I agree…..(but if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it)
I have many machines and I haven’t seen a BSOD or had a reboot problem in MORE than six years. I credit that to not buying crap hardware. Most of the problems I would say come from cheap memory modules or cheap graphics cards. Anything other than that is probably because the user has installed some lame ass bloatware. Oh I also don’t use screen savers.
Never have I had a BSOD with XP. Instead it just freezes.
17. Youre right too much Makers Mark, got sloppy.
I have been lucky for couple of years with no BSOD on Win XP, however I assure you it is still there. I have been bombarded with them during last two months. Half of them were related to new software I installed: Intervideo WinDVD as direct consequence of lax Windows policies on what the program is allowed to change in the system settings. WinDVD altered (without asking for permission or at least notifying) power settings. To make it worse, such deep change have been done wrongly and persistantly (I needed to manually alter registry to correct it in order to stop related BSOD’s). Other half came via inability of Win XP Pro to deal with copying data files from two different data DVD’s to two different HD’s in the system at the same time… No solution for this one (if you have two DVD drives and two or more hard drives, try moving repeatedly such amounts of data to see BSOD yourself). All this on a very modern machine (dual proc.; 2GB mem, high end graphics,…).
As for Vista review – it is irrelevant. I am Windows and Linux user and will stay so using XP as long as possible. Vista DRM issue may make me go in Mac direction if things do not change in following years (I hope they will).
BSOD on XP does happen, I had it happen on my wifes PC a LOT but that was due to 1) a buggy mobo and 2) too hot memory.
However it can and does happen, though not as bad as it did with 2k or (god) 95
Sorry – i had a blue screen of death just a few weeks ago. They are still around.
I run three machines and two laptops with XP and it has never happened. Now you have me worried.
I’ve worked in Computer Support for the past 18 years, and while BSODs have become less frequent in W2K and XP, they *do* happen. I’m currently supporting 260 PCs in my company, and I see an average of 2 to maybe 4 or 5 per month. XP. Dell machines.
I read the article and it´s pure F.U.D. and it reminds me why I stopped reading tech news on the internet. Almost every tech review out there is biased and unreliable, and why? Clicks = Money.
This is why most respected print news sources have qualified editors… take a look at Google News, it´s basically a collection of the most clicked-on news. No way to filter the sources…
Look at that guy David Pogue, he is your typical tabloid-whore. He posts videos of himself bashing Vista on Youtube, then a few weeks later shows up again telling us all how the Iphone is amazing… I mean, the darn thing isn´t even finished. Biased and shameful.
The internet is just a massive tabloid thanks to fake reporters.
If you´re running XP and you still have blue screens I´m sorry but you´re either:
1. using a pirated XP and cannot get Windows Updates
2. are a total douchebag and does not know how to use Windows Updates
3. just another F.U.D. agent out there talking nonsense
4. ignorant and a target for hackers and phishers and should not be using any type of computer
Oh, BSOD’s happen ALLL the time in XP. I run a computer repair shop and see them a lot. They are commonly trouble shooted as Stop Errors. For example, I had a machine this Monday with stop error 21A. I remember the first time I saw Unmountable_Boot_volume error and said “WTF?”. And I actually think the WORST feature that XP has in the OS is the Automatic reboor on system error mentioned above. A flash of Blue, sometimes barely seen, and you have a system constantly rebooting. One of the first things I do is to disable that on the computers I use, sell and repair.
Al Cole
I had several BSOD on XP, but that was when I was fine tuning my overclocking, so I assume that doesn’t count 😉
I agree that XP is pretty solid. But then again, I’ve never used OSX to compare, only Vista.
My Win 2k BSODs were directly tied to a bad fan on a secondary video card. Drag a window and drop it spanning the two monitors, and kablam. My only XP BSODs were tied to a bad NIC in an Latitude D600. Mostly it would just lock up, but once in a while a BSOD.
She spends so much time giving her non-Mac background, it is definitely very suspect.