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My Vista Rant
Glaine:
Does anyone else feel like they don't beta test this stuff because they expect us to perform that function? Think about XP - you know they expect you to do the "testing" for them when your crash screens have a "Gee, would you like to send us a report and help us figure out what we did wrong" button right next to the "End Task" button.
Yeah, I see that going over really well:
"Dear Microsoft, why does XP keep crashing all of my illegal roms? Hugs and Kisses, The Glaine".
Oddly they don't write back. I thought we were a family. The Microsoft Family.
And I agree with the consensus, I'm not upgrading until I have to buy a new machine that comes with it and right now I don't see anything all that great about it - the only change I've noticed in screenshots is the 3d view of all your windows. Woopie.
And all the reviews on Amazon I've seen are people saying that when you upgrade from XP, it deletes your XP install and for many it didn't work right the first time so they had to reinstall XP and the patches, then try the upgrade again. Reminds me of the huge stack of floppies you used to have to insert to install Windows back in the day.
ChadTower:
Mostly it's because they couldn't possibly QA every possible action in every possible part of the OS in every possible configuration. We're talking infinite variables here.
Glaine:
Too bad it crashes in all of them.
Zero_Hour:
There are certainly issues with Vista, I'm not arguing that there are not. But from my experience (Running public Betas and release candidates daily since August 06), this is the most stable windows client MS has released. It certainly is the easiest installation I've done - though as a rule, I never do upgrade installations. I always backup my data, wipe the drive and do a clean install from the get go. SO I can't speak to users who have had trouble with upgrade installations. I had enough issues with upgrades under 9x that I gave up the practice. I use my Vista system everyday, and honestly have only had a single crash of the OS, under Release candidate 1, which was months ago. There have been hiccups with applications, but part of being active in the beta testing was to send automated reports back to MS. I knew what I was getting myself into, and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had originally anticipated.
Early adoption certainly isn't for everyone, but much of the grumbling I've been hearing (and I'm not being specific to these boards) sounds eerily familiar to the early days of XP, and 95. As Chad mentioned, MS has the disadvantage (compared to Apple) of making their OS run under a ridiculous number of hardware configs, with a fairly impressive amount of backwards compatibility. They could hold back the release another year, and still have major technical hurdles upon launch. I'm of the belief that sooner or later, they have to ship it and get ready for the hotfixes and service packs. And nothing will prepare them for this better than getting it out to "real world" users.
I like the interface tweaks, I like the ease of networking config. I'm happy with the state of the OS this early after public release. That said, I would still not recommend it to the average windows user. Driver support and application compatibility being the main reasons. If you are a big time PC gamer and have a lot of titles that depend on openGL, then I would have to say don't even think about it, as the implementation is not particularly good, compared to what is already available under XP.
Howard_Casto:
My main complaint about vista is all the versions, and the unusually high cost of all the versions.
Generally, when you order an upgrade cd it is around 100 bucks. You save 100 by just upgrading. Vist in the other hand, starts at around 150, which seems a tad high to me. On top of that there are like 6 versions, and I am pretty sure all the versions are just there to confuse the user into buying the 230 dollar upgrade istead of the 150 one. I looked on the back and with the exception of home basic edition (which seems to be crap) they all come with the same stuff, save some "plus!" like packages.
I'm the biggest m$ fanboy you are gonna find. When I say that I'm waiting something must be wrong.
p.s. These suggestions of "just install linux" are kind of like suggesting to "just use an antenna" rather than order cable. I don't mean to offend our linux users out there but if you want to run the latest software and games you are pretty much limited to windows. It doesn't mean windows is the best, it's just the only real choice we have. So unfortunately, we are all vista bound, at least eventually.