Dumb Question: Why Vista?

Clearly I am a Mac user these days, but as I read the hype and the complaints around Vista, I have to admit I don't get it. Why bother with Vista? What does it give you that XP doesn't (other than a large crop of fresh bugs)?

For example, Win 98SE added support for USB2.0. Win ME added support for a wide variety of image acquisition devices. In this vein, what does Vista give you over what is available in XP - I have heard the "security features" bit, but what about real world NEW and USEFUL functionality? The security stuff *is* real, but I view it more as plugging holes than adding anything new and interesting.

Opinions? Vista costs its users a lot of new hardware. Is it worth it in consideration of whatever new capabilities it adds?

mac57 said:

Clearly I am a Mac user these days, but as I read the hype and the complaints around Vista, I have to admit I don't get it. Why bother with Vista? What does it give you that XP doesn't (other than a large crop of fresh bugs)?

For example, Win 98SE added support for USB2.0. Win ME added support for a wide variety of image acquisition devices. In this vein, what does Vista give you over what is available in XP - I have heard the "security features" bit, but what about real world NEW and USEFUL functionality? The security stuff *is* real, but I view it more as plugging holes than adding anything new and interesting.

Opinions? Vista costs its users a lot of new hardware. Is it worth it in consideration of what new capabilities it adds?

Click to expand...

its got shiny things for idiot pc builders to play with. personally i think it is the most retarded thing you can do with a pc.

Several reasons:

1. DirectX 10. Soon, only Vista will be able to play your favorite games.
2. XP...been there, done that. Vista is progress! It's new!
3. Security, as you mention...we've gotten to the point where this is a *feature*, not an expectation. Besides, XP was (and is) too far gone to fix.
4. Gotta have teh shiny...Apple just looked too good in comparison.
6. What else are you going to do, use Linux? Get a Mac? Ha ha ha ha! Linux! Mac! Ha ha! Oh, that just kills me!

I'm sure you could ask the same question about any OS X upgrade also.

Austin said:

its got shiny things for idiot pc builders to play with. personally i think it is the most retarded thing you can do with a pc.

Click to expand...

So, I assume you like OS X? Idiot PC builders? Have you seen this: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant

schweb said:

I'm sure you could ask the same question about any OS X upgrade also.

Click to expand...

That is affirmative.

To answer your question, mac57, "why not?" Actually, I just recently picked up a MacBook with the express intent of running Windows on it. I am intrigued my OS X, but I won't be running it as my primary OS for several reasons: I know Windows better, I use Windows for work, ALL of my clients run Windows, etc.

OS X seems very nice, but I can't see myself making the switch permanently. I have recently, however, started using OS X for web browsing, personal email and IM just so I can get the hang of it. So there's my reasoning, but I can't speak for others.

richy240 said:

I just recently picked up a MacBook with the express intent of running Windows on it.

Click to expand...

Why would anyone do that???

^^ Probably to get Apple's selection of high-quality hardware, physical style, and their support. When the hard drive crashes, or the RAM locks you up, you can go to your Apple Store and get fast, friendly help. Or you can spend hours on the phone with Dell, HP, or whomever insulting your intelligence by asking if the comp is plugged in or not.

spilio said:

^^ Probably to get Apple's selection of high-quality hardware, physical style, and their support. When the hard drive crashes, or the RAM locks you up, you can go to your Apple Store and get fast, friendly help. Or you can spend hours on the phone with Dell, HP, or whomever insulting your intelligence by asking if the comp is plugged in or not.

Click to expand...

Do remember that Apple will not repair or give you service any Mac with only XP on it. That I am very sure of. Apple does not support Windows in any way, they just give a way to run it for occasional apps that one might need.

Seems like richy240 has OSX installed also.

And if the system has a hardware problem, I'd hardly expect it to limit itself to either Windows or OSX (unless it was a driver issue). I'd never call Apple to say "How come I can't make my desktop icons' backgrounds transparent in XP?"

But I might call to say "My hard drive is toast and I can't boot up at all."

The point I was making is that Apple, within their terms of service, has an excellent support reputation. The last time I had to make a support call for a clients' PC, it sucked down two hours of time simply trying to explain to the foreigner on the phone that I had already checked the basics and needed T2 support.

mac57 said:

Clearly I am a Mac user these days, but as I read the hype and the complaints around Vista, I have to admit I don't get it. Why bother with Vista? What does it give you that XP doesn't (other than a large crop of fresh bugs)?

For example, Win 98SE added support for USB2.0. Win ME added support for a wide variety of image acquisition devices. In this vein, what does Vista give you over what is available in XP - I have heard the "security features" bit, but what about real world NEW and USEFUL functionality? The security stuff *is* real, but I view it more as plugging holes than adding anything new and interesting.

Opinions? Vista costs its users a lot of new hardware. Is it worth it in consideration of whatever new capabilities it adds?

Click to expand...

For the main target audience, Vista is just Windows. Most Windows users will get Vista on a new machine as part of the purchase price from an OEM. As long as it works, they won't care.

For the cadre of people who will actually buy a separate copy of Vista to install on a machine, there's all manner of reasons people have to do so: it's new; it's cool; it is up-to-date; it is compatible with machines delivered through OEMs.

I work in a company with around 6,000 people. We won't go to Vista until next year for reasons of stability, compatibility, and security. We *will* migrate to it, but not just yet. Additionally the migration will be that new desktop machines will get Vista. Old machines are unlikely to be upgraded unless there is some compelling business case to be made for doing so.

At home we have a Dell XPS-400 tower, an IBM ThinkPad, and the MacBook. The Win machines run XP Pro, and will not be migrated to Vista. The MacBook will not see Windows except through applications such as Remote Desktop Connection.

I see the main reason to go to Vista as being that if I buy another Windows machine I'll be forced into Vista. Eventually MS will no longer support XP, and applications may become Vista-only. New hardware will be Vista-only at least in terms of driver support. XP won't be a real option.

The current backlash against Vista will be short lived in relative terms, though I'm surprised that it even happened and that it's tolerated by MS. A year from now I'd guess there will be few XP licenses sold. When the next generation of Windows is about to be released, I can imagine people will hold on to Vista, just as they hold on to XP today. As I recall, XP was reviled when it was released.

Hmmm.... thanks for all the opinions folks. I haven't heard anything even remotely compelling. I still don't get it.

mathogre, you are right of course, the main reason that Vista sells is that it is the OS installed on most new PCs, except for some that Dell are now selling with either SuSE or Ubuntu Linux on them.

As for XP, I think it's bad name should be tempered somewhat. I have an XP box here at home, and provided you sit it behind a reasonable firewall, and take reasonable precautions with what you do ("safe computing"), it works great ...for Windows.

That was really at the heart of my question. Since XP seems stable, able to support all my hardware, and not as resource hungry as Vista, and assuming the average installed base customer feels that way, what would encourage them to migrate at the hefty fees MS is asking? The basic answer from the above is that it is glitzy and new (lines up nicely with MS' Vista slogan: "the Wow Starts Now") and has more eye candy than XP. Is that it? Sad, really sad.

Compare that to OS X Leopard. The list of genuinely useful new features is large. I can tell you ten good reasons to go to Leopard. So far, I can't seem to scrape together even ONE good reason to go to Vista, and I CAN scrape together a LOT of good reasons not to!

Yes mathogre you are right - the backlash will fade over time, as hardware catches up with the new software demands. Soon no one will remember a PC sold with less than 2 GB of memory on it. Sigh...

It is all SO in keeping with Wirth's Law: Software will get slower faster than hardware will get faster. Sigh...

Hey now, eye candy can be a pretty compelling reason for many people to do irrational things ;P

Check this out. I posted this to a listserve at work for our internal Linux community. Our division's "chief scientist" reads the list and is a Windows fan, so this is akin to beating a hornet's nest. So be it.

And indeed, why Vista?

PCMag Editor-In-Chief Leaves Post with Enmity Toward Vista

The editor-in-chief of PC Magazine is leaving, and has "issues" with
Vista. "The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me
stretches on endlessly."

He concludes with this: "I could go on and on about the lack of
drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible
system quirks, and more. But I won't bore you with the details. The
upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I
definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating
system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy,
was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the
unthinkable: I might move to Linux."

And if Linux doesn't work for him, he *could* get a Mac. -_^

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=213291,00.asp

Click to expand...

mathogre said:

Check this out. I posted this to a listserve at work for our internal Linux community. Our division's "chief scientist" reads the list and is a Windows fan, so this is akin to beating a hornet's nest. So be it.

And indeed, why Vista?

Click to expand...

I read that, very interesting. Not to revive this thread, but I've often wondered the same thing.

My company is very conservative, it took us 5 years to move to Windows XP from a mix of NT and 2000. Although an upgrade to Vista is "on the books", it doesn't look like there's much of a sense of urgency - and I can see why.

One of the major issues with Vista in a corporate setting is that Microsoft no longer trusts large businesses with volume licensing. As a volume license customer, we already have access to a number of licenses for Vista, which I've installed on test machines to see what the hype is all about. Aside from the afore-mentioned eye candy, I see little in the way of functional differences. There have been many changes (often seemingly for the sake of change), and I'm annoyed by some of the wizards that don't seem to offer "advanced" modes to circumvent their nannying (particularly in the wireless settings). But the stunning thing to me is that you must run a Vista activation server in order to keep the machines on your network activated. If you have machines in the field that spend the majority of their time disconnected from the LAN, you must obtain a special license from Microsoft for those machines on a one-to-one basis (meaning, I have to call and ask Microsoft "pretty please" for a special activation code for each one).

I can imagine that much of the discord in the business sector revolves around anti-customer policies like this. Businesses don't need DX10 or eye candy or overly-simplified wizards. So, I fail to see a compelling reason to upgrade, other than for the security reasons (and I would imagine that much of the prompting will be disabled in order to avoid the inevitable help desk calls when users either don't read or comprehend the warnings). Besides, companies like ours don't give the users local admin rights, and we already enforce best-practice policies that essentially make XP act much like Vista in terms of security.

As for me, my gaming box will soon be upgraded to Vista once I buy a DX10 card. But I don't believe my wife's laptop will, unless it dies and we replace it with another that has factory-installed Vista.

I agree... Vista is a waste. I installed it within a Parallels VM (for the PC) just to do some testing, and I saw nothing very compelling in it. And when I got a call from a client with it installed, I went batshit from running into warnings and dialogs constantly. Within 15 minutes, I had disabled most of what makes Vista Vista -- just to make it usable.

That's the problem with Microsoft... At some point, you just have to say the project is finished. I think they reached the maximum potential of Windows NT with XP Pro. Now it's time to move onto something else.

J

So, what happened? Any reasoned responses from the chief scientist?

mathogre said:

Check this out. I posted this to a listserve at work for our internal Linux community. Our division's "chief scientist" reads the list and is a Windows fan, so this is akin to beating a hornet's nest. So be it.

And indeed, why Vista?

Click to expand...

I would tend to agree - the Windows project may be running out of steam. However, MS is all about $$ and as long as Vista keeps generating them, they will keep flogging it. Time for Linux or Macs.

I have been experimenting with some older MS operating systems. You would be AMAZED at how stable and feature full two of MS' older offerings are. I refer in particular to Windows 98SE and the late, unlamented Windows ME (panned as "Miserable Edition", "Mistake Edition" etc.). Windows ME in particular just FLIES on my modern PCs and runs pretty much all of the software I use on my PC, right down to Firefox, Thunderbird... all the modern stuff ...and it only requires 32 MB RAM minimum and only 300 MB - 500 MB of disk space (and that is for a full install with the complete install CD image on board as well as CAB files).

Now tell me again, what do I get for that extra (nearly) 2 GB of RAM and countless GB of hard disk space that Vista costs me? When I need a PC, I think I will stick with the older, faster and better proven stuff.

Now before anyone brings it up, yes I need to protect that Windows ME environment behind a good firewall, but I have that in place - you need it for any PC. And by the way, because it is older, it is not really the target for hackers any more, so it is just that little bit safer than say XP or Vista. Not a lot, but a little.

mathogre said:

Check this out. I posted this to a listserve at work for our internal Linux community. Our division's "chief scientist" reads the list and is a Windows fan, so this is akin to beating a hornet's nest. So be it.

And indeed, why Vista?

Click to expand...

spilio said:

I agree... Vista is a waste. I installed it within a Parallels VM (for the PC) just to do some testing, and I saw nothing very compelling in it. And when I got a call from a client with it installed, I went batshit from running into warnings and dialogs constantly. Within 15 minutes, I had disabled most of what makes Vista Vista -- just to make it usable.

That's the problem with Microsoft... At some point, you just have to say the project is finished. I think they reached the maximum potential of Windows NT with XP Pro. Now it's time to move onto something else.

J

Click to expand...

mac57 said:

So, what happened? Any reasoned responses from the chief scientist?

Click to expand...

I did that yesterday - Saturday - so I wouldn't expect him to react until at least Monday, which I my day off. I'll be in the office on Tuesday, so I'll let you know how he reacted if at all.

I have not heard one person being happy about Vista,

it just stinks, you need HUGE amounts of space for it, just to run it without any applications open yet,

It's a Microsoft product, it needs to be improved twice at least till it works smooth, just like XP, it needed some time to just handle fine, still not 100% without bugs,

So well, I would say: Why bother to buy a Windows anyway,

Me not going to buy one anymore, heading for the Mac

mac57 said:

I have been experimenting with some older MS operating systems. You would be AMAZED at how stable and feature full two of MS' older offerings are. I refer in particular to Windows 98SE and the late, unlamented Windows ME (panned as "Miserable Edition", "Mistake Edition" etc.). Windows ME in particular just FLIES on my modern PCs and runs pretty much all of the software I use on my PC, right down to Firefox, Thunderbird... all the modern stuff ...and it only requires 32 MB RAM minimum and only 300 MB - 500 MB of disk space (and that is for a full install with the complete install CD image on board as well as CAB files).

Click to expand...

I remember my first PC. It was a 286 with 640KB of RAM and a huge 20MB hard drive. It ran DOS and some kind of DOS based GUI of which I've forgotten the name. And do you know what I did on that old machine? I wrote papers, worked with spreadsheets, shared files and information with peers on old style dial-up BBSes, and played games. I bet that sounds pretty familiar to all of us.

To your point about running Win9x on modern hardware: They they run more quickly on newer hardware isn't surprising -- that they run without error is. I wonder if MS always designed their stuff on super computers, and then tries to figure out ways to make it run on normal systems. Maybe that's where they they jump the shark?

For me, I considered Windows "done" with NT4. I still remember working at an old job, on a beat up 200MHz Pentium with 128MB RAM. The thing operated like an absolute dream system, even with the entire Office 2000 Premium edition opened, plus IE (company standard, you understand), a graphics program, and a text-editor for designing my web pages.

J