As Windows 7 hits the streets, why was Vista so bad?

[MM]

As a non-user of XP, Vista or Windows 7, I'm reading in today's The
Independent an article entitled "Windows 7 to salvage Vista 'train
wreck'"

I gather from the media in general that Vista was largely considered
by many to be a pile of donkey droppings, but I have seen it and
played with it. It looks great. So what was the problem with it?

In any case, Windows 7 (I tried the beta test version a few months
ago) looks very similar. So I'm puzzled as to why XP was seen as the
best thing since sliced bread, but Vista the sort of the thing the cat
drags in.

?

MM

 

[duke]

As a non-user of XP, Vista or Windows 7, I'm reading in today's The
Independent an article entitled "Windows 7 to salvage Vista 'train
wreck'"

I gather from the media in general that Vista was largely considered
by many to be a pile of donkey droppings, but I have seen it and
played with it. It looks great. So what was the problem with it?

In any case, Windows 7 (I tried the beta test version a few months
ago) looks very similar. So I'm puzzled as to why XP was seen as the
best thing since sliced bread, but Vista the sort of the thing the cat
drags in.

?

MM

In an attempt to make the Windows Vista more secure, access to some
folders and functions was limited only to users with Administrator
rights. Installing some legacy program became difficult even with
Administrators privileges and once installed would fail by the end
users
As a result those programs which were never written to accommodate
this restriction, would either quit running or might constantly nag
the user to acquire Administrators privileges. In some cases, such as
a home setting, this can easily be resolved by making all users
Administrators, but in the corporate world where system managers did
not want every employee to have these higher privileges, well you can
see the problem.

In the end I am of the opinion that Vista made little to no headway in
terms of added security, I personally chose to avoid the hassles by
simply waiting for a better version to be released.
Is Windows 7 better..... I don't know ????? Still waiting.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per MM:

Vista was largely considered... but I have seen it and
played with it. It looks great. So what was the problem with it?

I'm about the same level w/Vista: seen it and played with it.

I tried to find something that it did that XP Pro did not do -
AND, which would be useful to me, but I couldn't.

I'm not saying nothing's there - only that I couldn't find it.

OTOH, a .NET developer I sit next to wound up, some reason or
another, with Vista on her new Dell laptop and elected to stick
with it instead of installing XP Pro right away.

Within two weeks, she absolutely *despised* Vista - and still
hasn't got a single good word to say for it.

She has also lost a significant number of man hours (we're
freelance... bill by the productive hours worked, not wasted
troubleshooting Vista issues) chasing down problems in here
development environment.

Geeze, *I've* even lost time - being distracted by her hours-long
phone hassles with various support organizations.

I don't know enough to detail her problems but, trust me, she had
plenty of them.


So, bottom line, I'm with you: maybe 7 when I start hearing good
things and few or no bad things about it.... *Maybe*....

 

[Nil]

I gather from the media in general that Vista was largely
considered by many to be a pile of donkey droppings, but I have
seen it and played with it. It looks great. So what was the
problem with it?

As was already mentioned, Vista implemented some new security measures
designed to protect the average user from themselves and from viruses
and rogue programs. They were aiming for something akin to the security
that unix systems have always had, where only an administrator has
complete access to the operating system, and that everyone else must be
granted specific permission to sensitive parts of the system.
Microsoft's solution was very heavy-handed, intrusive, and coarse. It
was hard to control permissions, and harder for the average home user
to understand the need for it. Supposedly, Windows 7 has improved the
control of system security. I've played around with the beta a little,
and it does seem to be less of a nag.

On my own Vista system, I shut off the User Account Control feature.
This makes it about equally secure to XP. In that state, I don't really
find any particular advantage to XP. It has some slight disadvantages
such as higher hardware requirements and a somewhat confusing and
poorly designed UI. But basically, it's more of the same ol'. I don't
think it's the horror show that some people make it out to be, nor was
it the giant leap for mankind that Microsoft claimed.

 

[smlunatick]

As was already mentioned, Vista implemented some new security measures
designed to protect the average user from themselves and from viruses
and rogue programs. They were aiming for something akin to the security
that unix systems have always had, where only an administrator has
complete access to the operating system, and that everyone else must be
granted specific permission to sensitive parts of the system.
Microsoft's solution was very heavy-handed, intrusive, and coarse. It
was hard to control permissions, and harder for the average home user
to understand the need for it. Supposedly, Windows 7 has improved the
control of system security. I've played around with the beta a little,
and it does seem to be less of a nag.

On my own Vista system, I shut off the User Account Control feature.
This makes it about equally secure to XP. In that state, I don't really
find any particular advantage to XP. It has some slight disadvantages
such as higher hardware requirements and a somewhat confusing and
poorly designed UI. But basically, it's more of the same ol'. I don't
think it's the horror show that some people make it out to be, nor was
it the giant leap for mankind that Microsoft claimed.

The User Account Control feature does not protect against virus /
spyware infections. It will help to block the spread only. What a
useless feature!

 

[Adam]

Vista is absolutely appalling! I use both XP and Vista and have found Vista
to be a big backward step in usability, mainly because nothing is logical or
intuitive... vene just finding a location on the hard drive from the My
Documents dialogue box. You can sit and stare at a screen for 10 mins and not
be able to work out how to do something. And it is sooooo slow compared to
XP. I can't believe it ever passed the usability labs!

I'm sticking with XP SP3 till I can be assured that 7 is a positive
development.

 

[sgopus]

I've played with win rc 7, and find that hardware wise, it's great, installs
fast and loads fast, however wmp sucks a big one, it keeps winding up with
zero byte files and the only fix is to wipe out the database within WMP and
some other files.
I see the hardware support as a big plus, but WMP12 is BIG negative.
I dual boot with xp pro, and win 7 finds all my installed hardware simply no
extra drivers to load, it all works.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Adam:

ista is absolutely appalling! I use both XP and Vista and have found Vista
to be a big backward step in usability, mainly because nothing is logical or
intuitive... vene just finding a location on the hard drive from the My
Documents dialogue box. You can sit and stare at a screen for 10 mins and not
be able to work out how to do something.

That begs a question that's been in my mind since
Windows-Over-DOS: don't Microsoft have a committee or a team or
something that looks for gratuitous changes in the UI that don't
achieve any benefit? Seems like every time I migrate to a new
version of Windows, stuff moves around: it's the same
functionality, but now I have to learn to go to another place to
find it.