Windows Vista: Not Worth the $$$

Saturday, April 28, 2007 by Gideon MacLeish | Discussion: OS Wars

Someone made a comment on another thread that Vista has gotten the nickname "ME2". And while that may be oversimplifying things, the truth is that in the big picture Vista is likely to be remembered more as a disaster than a success. Maybe "New Coke" would be a better analogy.

In my rather limited empirical experience I am seeing a lot of people purchase ill advised Vista upgrades, only to see them dump them in favor of their old XP installation. Not techies, mind you, but regular end users. End users who, to put it bluntly, do NOT like the new O/S.

I have said for months that Vista may be the O/S that pushes Linux into the mainstream. I honestly like Vista, but when I put myself into the seat of someone who is not very familiar with computers, it's a pain. Many people have spent time painstakingly learning the basics for their XP systems; by changing the file structure and even the names of the tabs so thorougly, Microsoft has put them back to square one, and made not only their computers, but their operating systems obsolete.

But the biggest users are usually the business users. And Vista is, in my opinion, destined for modest success at best in that arena. If I were managing a network of computers on XP, my advice would be simple: don't upgrade. XP's extended support will go through 2011, and MS' next OS release will be two years on the market by then (ok, given that MS has NEVER met the deadline on an OS release, let's say one year).

Windows Vista is, in my opinion, not worth the cost of upgrading. Not unless it comes installed on a purchased machine. And it may well be a significant marketing blunder on the part of the boys in Redmond.

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PurrBall
Reply #61 Sunday, July 22, 2007 10:37 AM
As for waiting on the service packs to make Vista more reliable/stable, that's not necessary either....I've been running Vista Ultimate for the last 7 months, and not once have I had a crash, freeze-up or BSOD, etc....something I cannot say for the same period using XP.


XP was crash city when it first came out.
PurrBall
Reply #62 Sunday, July 22, 2007 10:38 AM
As for waiting on the service packs to make Vista more reliable/stable, that's not necessary either....I've been running Vista Ultimate for the last 7 months, and not once have I had a crash, freeze-up or BSOD, etc....something I cannot say for the same period using XP.


XP was crash city when it first came out.
REDstyler
Reply #63 Sunday, July 22, 2007 10:40 AM
XP was crash city when it first came out.

And so is Vista, which is why I made my point. Well, I have only experienced games constantly crashing. But still is true.
mschleisner
Reply #64 Sunday, July 22, 2007 11:50 AM
Oh heck, I will pull the two cents out of my pocket again and say, Why fix it if it ain't broke. I won't upgrade yet, I don't want it, don't need it. Vista is a pain. Tried it on a friends computer that she just bought and hated it. I think if you can keep your computer upgraded then just leave XP in there till they get something that really works well for all. I like XP so why shouldn't I leave it alone right now? If if works for you then don't waste the money. If you are showing off for friends then do somethings else with your computer to show off. Everything should be what works for you, and don't let anyone tell ya different. I have seen people upgrade to vista only to remove it and go back to their old XP. I don't know. I will never jump on anything till it's been around a while and I know there are no bugs in it. New cars, been there and had recalls up the ying yang. OS same thing when I got XP. Now it works for me. I'm good thanks. Staying with the old for now.
starkers
Reply #65 Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:43 PM
And so is Vista, which is why I made my point. Well, I have only experienced games constantly crashing. But still is true.


The point is that it's not true.....I've had Vista Ultimate for the past 7 months now and not one single crash, BSOD or freeze up. Vista is quite stable on a capable machine and is reliable enough now to run as a primary OS. Many of the complaints I've come across have been from people trying to run Vista on a lower end or older machine which is not adequate, so of course it's going to be unstable, but that's more the fault of the user than it is of the OS.
MadDeez
Reply #66 Sunday, July 22, 2007 3:44 PM
i completely agree with starkers. i've never had the first issue with vista on my machine. my younger brother has had issues with his but his system is an amd athlon xp 3200+ based machine. altho it was top-notch 3 or 4 years ago, it's pretty much an entry level system now.
starkers
Reply #67 Monday, July 23, 2007 4:15 AM
my younger brother has had issues with his but his system is an amd athlon xp 3200+ based machine. altho it was top-notch 3 or 4 years ago, it's pretty much an entry level system now.


While I've heard complaints from people with below par machines - because they didn't understand Vista's hardware requirements - I also hear from detractors, whingers and denigrators who've never even seen Vista, much less used it, and all because they've listened to all the anti-hype instead of trying it for themselves.

To me, that's just as idiotic as buying a product, sight unseen, based purely on the hype of the day....but decidedly worse, because the negativity may influence the naive (other fools) not to try a stable/reliable product.

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